You can stop holding your breath now

I know, you have all been waiting to hear if Jellybean is surviving this nightmare. I finally have a couple of spare minutes to update her adoring fans. The first couple of days were pretty boring, mostly spent in anxious anticipation of the upcoming bandage change. You may not have been reading between the lines very well, so I'll just say it. Jellybean is a sassy red mare. And she doesn't like to tolerate what she doesn't like. You see where I'm going.

The vet school initially said the bandage needed to be changed on Sunday (2 days post stitching). I asked about pushing it back a couple of days until my normal vet (the wonderful Dr. Lee of South 40 Equine) could help/supervise the bandage change, and the attending said sooner, and that it would be best to do it Sunday. Now I'm not made of money. I want my horse to be healthy, but I'm not really willing to pay for a weekend farm call for a bandage. I talked to Dr. Lee, and he suggested if the bandage was in the same place, I should make an appointment early Monday morning. Whew. That was a lot of stress that fell away.

So Monday morning comes, and Dr. Lee starts taking the bandage off. Opinionated mare is very unhappy with this setup, and proceeds to be naughty. Cue the good drugs. Jellybean relaxed in the cross ties and Dr. Lee does his business. I forgot to take pictures the first time we changed the bandage :(. So Dr. Lee gave (haha sold) me a bunch of bandage supplies and most importantly, a sedation drug, Dormosedan. He finished the bandage and remounted the splint, and Jellybean went back to her stall to sleep it off.

The next time the bandage was changed, there were flies sitting on the outside of the vet wrap, indicating extra drainage. So we tried to cut off the bandage. Jellybean was really really really upset about this procedure, even through the fuzz of sedation. As it turns out, we were pushing the scissors into a bandage sore from the splint. Nothing worse then forcing a horse to stand while you are causing them pain :'( We made the executive decision to leave the splint off one bandage change early, in the hope that the rubs could start healing.

I took some pictures:

This is the rub on the back side of the knee

The actual wound is healing really good

Bandage shot!

Stay tuned for another post on further care of this wound!