full leg replacement surgery

Remember how optimistic I was about Murary’s leg last week?  It was healing, the wound was closing, and (I haven’t written about this yet) he was working fantastically under saddle to boot.  He was gonna be healed up in no time!! JUST KIDDING.

he is starting to get that soft, fuzzy look that winter hair brings

During our dressing changes I noticed that healthy skin had stopped closing inward, and on Monday when I left the dressing off for more than a few minutes, a ring of proud flesh reared its ugly head.  My vet said she could come out on Thursday (three days later), and to keep putting steroids on and wrapping and she’d debride if needed.  So of course I put some wonder dust on it JUST IN CASE that would fix the problem for me.

I turned Murray out on Thursday before the vet appointment knowing that it would be his last shot at freedom for a while.  He galloped and galloped and galloped and galloped.  And then when I called him he galloped up to me. ❤

When the vet got there I told her about the progress/regress since she last saw the wound, and then said “and I know you said just to keep putting steroids on it, but on Tuesday I put on some Wonder Dust…”  She said “noooooo” in response, and her husband/assistant said “YEAH! I love that stuff!!”

“I know sometimes it eats away at the proud flesh and so I figured I’d just do it, because what’s the worst thing that could happen? You were already coming out to debride it.  So I figured you could fix any problem that I caused with it. SORRY I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF I KNOW YOU SAID NOT TO.”

At least I made her laugh?

also learned a new wrap: pressure wraps!

Linda sedated Murray (I now know that he is not a lightweight), and started examining his leg.  Unfortunately, the extensor tendon along the front of his cannon was starting to swell above and below the hole, which means there’s probably some low-grade tendonitis happening in there (probably an infection, at least one hopes).  That led to digging around in the wound.  The weird black spot that had formed in there was odd, and Linda thought it was maybe some deep necrotic tissue that formed from the outside in, and therefore couldn’t be sloughed properly.  After taking away the yucky proud flesh and necrotic bits, she pointed out to me that a couple of deep spots on the wound went all the way down to the tendon.

Ugh. Great.

But we cut it all away, and Linda applied a pressure bandage and prescribed SMZs to help ward off infection.  Bandage changes every 2-3 days, with triple antibiotic, steroid, telfa, sheet cotton, vetwrap, and elastikon to keep that puppy healing nice and flat.  PSA: Valley Vet is cheaper than Amazon for that shit.

sad sedated selfie

The super super super duper humongous downside to this whole “fixing the fucking leg wound for good” thing is that Murray has been going so well under saddle lately and we’ve been having a ton of fun and now we’re limited to stall rest and hand walking for a month.

A WHOLE MONTH. WTF.

tiny dog provides awkward comfort during veterinary procedure

There’s no shortage of ponies to ride, fortunately.  And I always said that if Murray went lame I’d just do tons of ground work and clicker training with him, and teach him all kinds of tricks so… I guess this is the perfect opportunity for us to learn some shit!

Overall, 0/10 do not recommend burning your horse’s skin off with chemicals and allowing deep necrotic tissue to form all the way down to the tendon.  (However Linda gets a 10/10, obviously.)