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10/05/2002: "It Just HAPPENS - Okay!?"

We had Dr. Conley out yesterday to check Ami’s mouth. We had been noticing for a couple of weeks that she was chewing extremely oddly - especially her carrots. She would turn her head to the side, stretch out her neck and attempt to chew it, dropping most if not all. She wasn’t off feed or anything like THAT - EMERGENCY!!! - but it did appear that she needed to be checked.

Dr. C didn’t find anything in particular, but he went ahead and floated her anyway even though she’d just been done in May. He said sometimes there might be just a small point that wasn’t really obvious, but could still be bothering her nevertheless. So, hopefully this will take care of it. She does seem to be chewing her carrots more normally this morning, getting used to the new “feel” in her mouth.

I also had him check Indy’s left upper incisor. It’s obvious that the permanent tooth has not yet replaced the baby tooth, and I wanted to make sure this was normal and not a retained cap. Dr. C said that, at Indy’s age, this would be expected, but if the cap isn’t gone by the next time he floats Indy, he will just pull it. I could tell that Mr. Baby Teeth was VERY glad that was all for him. I think he’s had enough of vets for right now!

Dr. Conley said he wouldn’t be at all surprised if he saw Indy’s case written up in some Journal soon. It seems NONE of the vets have EVER seen this type of abscess as a complication to castration. Just like none of them had ever seen anything like what happened to DJ. I’m getting a rep for strange cases - Dr. C was teasing me yesterday, said he’d been discussing it with his staff about how in the WORLD could all this happen to ME. As he left, he told me not to do any more weird stuff. Hey, I’m trying! I’m TRYING!

Indy seems to be doing fine. Dr. C remarked that it was VERY fortunate that Indy presented some signs that caused us to investigate and do something while we still could. He said often deep abscesses aren't discovered until they’re the size of basketballs with adhesions to the intestines and body cavity. He said most of those do not survive.

We won’t know exactly what is going on with the abscess until we go back to Purdue in a couple of weeks, but Indy feels great and has never spiked a fever. Also, he hasn’t had any side effects from the high dose of TMP/SMZ that he’s on for this month. There was always the chance that he could colic or develop diarrhea. Thank goodness, that hasn’t happened. I’ve got him on a high dose of Ration Plus, and that may be making a difference in keeping the good gut bugs happy :o).

Both he and Ami are getting quite fuzzy now. I’m NOT a winter person myself, but the horses like it, and, since there’s nothing I can do about it, I might as well enjoy it for them, right? I’ll try…