The Abscess of Doom

The month of October started out with so much promise and excitement only to end with basically a month off of riding. The Karen O’Connor clinic was out (thankfully just for Chimi, thank you for saving me Joe!) and after an initial time for 2pointober any hopes I had of winning the cool prizes were thrown out the window. And just like that I was soaking, wrapping, and cursing the damn Abscess of Doom. 

Chimi says "Who me?"

I think the Abscess of Doom started back in September when I was supposed to go XC schooling with KC and Pilgrim at FENCE. Chimi had come in lame the day before and I immediately started soaking and wrapping it bc I knew the KOC clinic was fast approaching. 2 days later Chimi was sound and I got a chance to ride a couple of days and get in my 2pointober time of 3:00 minutes. This summer killed my fitness bc I sat around and ate to much cake at work and didn’t get to move around as much as I usually do. So I had to come up with a “get fit quick” plan before the clinic, which involved lots of riding and two point. 2 days later Chimi was lame. 

Chimi did not like to keep his hoof in the bucket and proceeded to kick it over spilling all the hot water and epson salts out!!! Bad Chimi!

Normally when Chimi gets an abscess he stays sound and the only reason you know he had one is the blowout spot on his hoof. Occasionally he’ll get one and be lame but those normally last 2 days at the most and he’s fine. I was hoping that it would follow that same pattern bc we had just entered the week of the KOC clinic and I wasn’t getting a chance to ride at all leading up to the clinic! After 3 days of soaking and wrapping there was hope and Wednesday afternoon when I lunged Chimi he was mostly sound and I sighed a little bit in relief and thought “yes, we’re almost there”. Then Thursday morning rolls around and Chimi comes in 3 legged lame and refused to put weight on his left hind and I cried in frustration. 

As you know from previous posts Joe came to the rescue and we had a successful clinic. Chimi sat around all weekend probably laughing at Joe having to cart me around while he got a mini vacation and ate hay all day. 

Joe to the rescue!!!

The week after the clinic I was starting to freak out a bit. Nothing was blowing out and my horse was still really lame. I couldn’t decide if I should call the vet or not bc what were they going to do? Tell me to keep doing exactly what I was already doing? My farrier was supposed to come out that week so I begged him (it didn’t take much) to hoof test Chimi and see if he could figure out where it was. The day he came out Chimi came in with a huge tender bulge right at his cornet band and my farrier looked at me and said “there you go, that’s where it’s going to come out”. And sure enough 2 days later it did! 

The day it blew out

Much to Chimi’s relief the pressure had been released and he was sound. Unfortunately the day before it blew out Chimi developed a case of cellulitis that I recognized after the emergency/weekend hours started Friday evening. Trying to save my pocket book from an emergency call I started Chimi on antibiotics and wrapped his leg to help reduce swelling. Saturday afternoon the abscess blew out his cornet band right at the tender bulge. Over the weekend I kept watch over his leg and planned to take him to the vet Monday morning to make sure nothing was going on I wasn’t in control of. In the meantime I had another fun horseless cross country outing with KC and Sara and even got to hop on Gem for a bit! 

The day after it blew out his cornet band

Finally Monday rolled around and I called the vet to set up an appointment. I was feeling a bit of relief bc the cellulitis was going down and my horse was sound (at the walk). But I wanted to make sure it would stay that way so I loaded Chimi up and headed to the vet office. We were met by a vet tech and a younger vet while we waited for the more senior vet to finish injecting hocks on another horse. Chimi was not being a very good patient and kept insisting he walk around and the poor vet tech kept him going while I went over everything I’ve done and noticed with the younger vet. Finally the senior vet arrived and we went back over everything. Dr PJ (the senior vet) was amazing and used Chimi as a teaching opportunity for the younger vet (I feel terrible bc I forgot her name but I can recognize her face!) Dr PJ picked apart Chimi’s conformation, had him jogged to check on soundness, and asked younger vet (YV)  how to proceed and what she would do. She gave an acceptable answer but Dr PJ used this as an opportunity to talk about all the factors, including financial. YV wanted to do radiographs and clean out the area the abscess blew out and Dr PJ said yes that is an option, to make sure nothing else is there, or judging how sound this horse was (they were very impressed that he was sound at the walk and mostly sound at the trot b/c apparently horses with gravel abscesses (what Chimi had) are usually still lame after it blows out.) that his cellulitis was improving, and I was only 15 minutes away so if something changed Chimi could easily come back for a more in depth exploration. THANK GOD FOR DR PJ!!!!!! He looked at me and said "Radiographs and debriding the would would cost me $500-$700 or just wrapping it and keeping it clean would be much less and more budget friendly. I went with the more budget friendly option.

Chimi was pretty close to being a model patient and stood still but did lift his sore foot when they were cleaning it. But as the vets said "he's not trying to kill us so he's behaving wonderfully!" Dr PJ continued to use Chimi as a teaching opportunity and asked YV how you should wrap the wound. I'm sure at this point she probably started second guessing herself (I know I would!) and sort of answered questioningly. I really don't blame her b/c there's nothing worse being put in the spotlight and hoping you don't give the wrong answer. Either way Dr PJ showed YV how he wanted the foot wrapped to keep dirt and debris out of the abscess which was still draining. He layered Chimi's foot with so much padding that his hoof grew two sizes! One of the major things Dr PJ was very adiment about was no vet wrap directly on the skin, for 2 reasons. 1) Vet wrap can be an irritant and cause irritation on the skin for some horses and 2) if pulled to tight it can cut off the circulation to the hoof and cause the hoof to die. He then talked about how he's had to put down to many foals that were put in corrective hoof casts that were just vet wrapped onto the leg. And on that sad note... Dr PJ finished off Chimi's hoof wrap with elstacon and we were sent home with directions to keep the boot on for 48 hours and then rewrap it again for another 48 hours or until the abscess stops draining.

The vet's wrapping job.... it lasted 48 hours

Dr PJ's wrap lasted 48 hours and possibly could of gone another day but I cut it off 2 days later and OMG it smelled so bad! The animalintex (sp?) was soaked and smelly with 2 days worth of puss. Barf.

my wrapping job lasted 24 hours... vet did a better job but my was good enough! (I was very careful not to pull the vet wrap tight access his cornet band since I didn't have as much padding as the vet did)

Now a week or so has gone by and the abscess is growing out! Just hoping no lasting damage from the cornet band but at least Chimi's sound and happy. I've started riding him again and he seems no worse for the wear. My friend JP came over with her 4 year old to go trail riding and Chimi was very lazy! I think he's enjoyed his time off to much, but not anymore!!! It's time to RIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's starting to grow out