Tuesday, October 27, 2015

New Girl

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.
This is the new girl.

No, she's not a permanent addition; she's actually very, very temporary. She is badly injured, and needs special care, and the hope is that she will heal enough here to make it.

Yes, it's that bad.
Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.
She is skinny, underweight and malnourished, in large part from the infection now ravaging her body. She belongs to Wings's brother-in-law, and we only found out a little over a week ago that she was in such dire straits. We hadn't seen the horse at that time — not until about noon today, actually, when he brought her here — but based on his description of her condition, we sent him home with five days' of antibiotics we had on hand, plus probiotics and some other supplies. Those ran out long ago, of course.

Sight unseen, but based on what they described to me, I thought I knew what had happened, and said so: an attempt by a small but dominant stallion at mounting, gone horribly, horribly wrong. Based on what she saw today, the horse vet agrees.

This poor little girl has a fistula, a rectal-vaginal tear that has become horribly infected and inflamed. It should've been treated immediately, but it's been months, and we didn't even know there was anything up with his horse until ten days or so ago. I had to take photos of it to e-mail to the vet this morning; I've spared you those horrors in favor of her beautiful face.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.
She is skittish and scared, and in pain, but she trusts us instinctively. She has no real name, but she responds to what I choose to call her, especially in the old tongue; the animals know the old languages better than we humans do. We will be medicating her, cleaning the wound, for a week; next Tuesday, the vet will return for debridement and trimming, assuming the swelling and inflammation have subsided sufficiently, and then we'll know what we have. If it's small, there's an outside chance it could heal itself, given time and proper care; more likely, it will require surgery. How they'll pay for that, we have no idea, but in the meantime, we'll give her the best care we can here. We're hoping that she survives.

She will get what we can give her, here. Including love.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

4 comments:

  1. Sent the monthly a couple days early, sounds like you've got new expenses.

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    1. Oh, thanks so much, hon! Although they're going to have to reimburse is for expenses (already accumulating), & *they're* the ones who are gonna have to pay the vet bills. Even if it has to be crowdfunded. We can't do it.

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  2. My heart goes out to her; sending energies and will light a candle when I get home.

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    1. Thanks, darlin'. She's in bad shape, although moving her over here has already been good for her. She's such a sweet girl; I really hope this ca be fixed.

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