Welcome Back, Vincent Van Versa

A year ago I started this blog to track the progress of my goofy gelding and his injury. At first we thought he had contracted EPM, a neurological disease that can prove fatal. But after test and a trip to Auburn University Large Animal Hospital, it was discovered he actually had terrible injuries to both suspensory tendons in his back left leg and lesions were beginning to develop in the right leg as well.

After PRP injections to both legs, we decided to let Vince be a lazy horse for a least one year. The problem with tendon injuries is that you cannot just sonogram the legs. Since the damage is internal, it takes a high powered machine to see inside the tendon bundles. When Vince had his last checkup at Auburn in May of 2012, they said he might never be sound again, and their suggestion was to cut the nerves to the tendon, since what he was experiencing was phantom pain.

I don't agree with cutting nerve to solve a problem not knowing if that action may itself cause bigger problems. So since last year, my goofball has been eating and lazing about tearing about stall walls with his cribbing and enjoying treats and hand walking with me every weekend.

He lost some weight in December, but we replaced his feed bag with a pan and changed his feed to a higher fat content and he has plumped back up. The muscles are flabby, but a few weeks of good, steady riding with help them tone back up. Most important, his attitude has improved.

When I got to the barn our trainer said to me, "I hope you are going to play with your boy, because he's been a real turd this week lunging at people." When I got to his stall, I knew he was angry with me for missing two weeks in a row because all he would show me was his butt! However, when I pulled the giant carrot from my pocket I suddenly became his best friend.

On the wet walk up to the main barn, he stayed right at my side instead of wandering off to eat the grass. All the way to the barn he stayed with me. Placing his Iconoclast Rehab Boots on, we took him to the arena, intending to put him on the line and see what happened.

Oh. My. God. He was all get up and haul ass! Vince tore up the arena with his prancing and leaping and bucking for at least fifteen minutes. Then his lack of conditioning caught up with him, and the sides started heaving and he sauntered over to my side with a "how was that Mom?" look on his gorgeous face.

My boy is healthy, and I intend to keep him that way for a long time!

An Update On A Goofy Gelding

Last Thursday AJ and I returned to Auburn University Large Animal Clinic for a one month check up for Vince.  The big boy was more than ready for a field trip, having been on stall rest since his PRP injection procedure. A large high strung gelding in a 12 x 12 space for an extended period of time is not a nice experience, but Vince has endured though he might not think so.

Our appointment this time was at 9am, so at the crack of dawn, we pulled out of BSRA and onto I-75 south and early rush hour traffic. Unlike our first trip there were no major slowdowns and we actually arrived in Auburn thirty minutes early. They showed Vince to an outpatient stall while the doctors finished their morning procedures. Right at nine, the entire cadre showed up to watch Vincent trot up and down.

His two doctors, whose names I cannot spell but will acknowledge in full when this recovery is complete, watched the big boy take three steps and pronounced him still lame. Meanwhile, I am jumping up and down with happiness because there was no deep drop to the left shoulder as he trotted nor did he trip over his own feet. Dr. W looked at me like I had lost my mind and said, "But he is still lame." I replied, "But he is better!"

So we retired to the ultrasound room to see the exact measure of recovery. The news is good. The ligament in the right leg is no longer inflamed and the left leg has no more tear but it is still swollen. For the first half of the ultrasound, Vince didn't even need any sedative. It wasn't until she had to start reaching through his legs to reach the right side that his ears began to twitch and the restlessness set in. Out came the dreaded needle and soon the light weight drunk had his big white blaze buried in my chest.

Since we had pulled Vince's shoes after the first trip to Auburn, Dr. A. decided she wanted the Auburn farrier to trim his feet, especially the rear to start shortening the toe and hopefully rotating the heels to relieve pressure on the suspensory ligaments. He was a good boy for their farrier (much to the surprise of our BSRA farrier who considers Vince's feet an all day project after his previous shoeing.) The sedative soon wore off and before a hour and a half and passed we were back on the way to Atlanta.

So Vince is on his way, but still has one more month of stall rest with confined turnout alone. They also have prescribed a mild sedative so that when he is outside the coming and going of other horses doesn't work him into a frenzy. Of course, as much of a light weight as he is with drugs, we will have to play with the dosage to see what works best. Hopefully this will also work on his cribbing habit. It would be nice to see him doing anything rather than sucking on his stall door or window frame. We return in 10 weeks now, a long time but Dr. A. will be spending the month of May in Kentucky working. Rather than break in a new resident who hasn't been included in the process I will wait for Dr. A. Also, we will probably be taking Katie when we return, to have a broken tooth removed which is below the gum line and is causing her to toss her head.

When we first thought Vince had EMP, one of the comments I read the most was that you would learn more about the personality and stamina of your horse throughout the recovery process. I would venture to say any long term injury can teach you how to connect with your equine partner. While I complain about his goofiness, my gelding is handling this injury with a patience not many geldings exhibit. He knows we are making him feel better, so his tolerance for many things had grown. I know him so much better.

He likes to have his head rubbed and to be brushed. He likes to roll in sand rather than dirt or grass, I guess a nod to his Florida roots. He likes sunshine and thinks the biggest crime in the universe is an empty Nibble Net. He misses Sneaky, his buddy, and is uncertain of his place in the pasture when he returns. He knows the sound of my car along with my voice and woe be unto me if I don't come see him first before any other horse. 

While we still have a long road ahead of us, at least we are going together. Dr. A. feels certain that when all is said and done, Vince will be jumping again and that was the purpose of the trips, to make an injured member of our family healthy again. There is no distinction in my mind between my two legged and my four legged children. When they are in pain, I want to make it better. In a perfect world, everyone would be the same way.

UPDATE: Sneaky and Vince, Comrades in Stalls

We went out to the barn today, to prepare for a horse show this weekend across town. It was the first time I had seen Vince or Sneaky since Saturday. There were a lot of changes.

First, an update on Sneaky. He is feeling good, and the swelling in his sheath has gone down considerably. I walked him around the aisles today and we moved at his pace, which consisted of three steps forward and then wait a few minutes before walking three more. The fluid has settled to the lowest points, along the bottom line from sternum to rump. This causes the skin to stretch tight across the top line making the hip bones more pointed that they really are.

His appetite is still good as is his water intake. What goes in is having no problems coming out in either format. The banamine was making him sweat, so SM gave him a haircut to help with the sudden heat wave we are having here in the South. I presented him a molasses treat with rock candy in the center, which he loved, and a small carrot. That took a little longer, but when we left he had moved around in the stall and was starting in on the evening hay.

Sneakers is in for a long recovery, but as long as his spirits stay good it will be okay. He knows this time he got hurt worse than ever before and this injury is teaching him that age is more than just a number. But he also knows how much he is loved.

There is a special bond that exists between horses and humans. Our bond with them is primal; on their backs we conquered the world. Behind their shoulders have plows brought our food. They have transported us and transformed us, and if we stop long enough to listen, they can teach us. If we are smart enough to hear.

Vince is responding to his PRP injection extremely well. When he heard me come into the barn, he stopped cribbing long enough to come demand my attention. His eyes were bright and his ears were forward, two things that had been missing these past weeks as we fretted and consulted on what could be wrong. Today the goofy gelding was back, complete with a new component - love. After six long months of dancing around together, now we are a family.

Why did it take so long?  Why now? Because I took away the pain. I know, it wasn't me personally but we took him to the big scary place with needles and now it feels better. He knows at last we care about him. In human terms, all we did was take him to a doctor, but in the animal world we did something huge. In return Vince is ready to go forward and get better.

And you know what? So am I.

Into A Completely New Day

Late on Thursday afternoon, Dr. Groover and the Neurology team referred the case to the Surgical Department. The biggest break in our case was the really bad attitude Vince had developed in the preceding weeks. Always a little head shy, he had become down right unsociable. Not even AJ was immune to his poor view on life. His behavior was more irritated than would come from pure EPM, I was informed.

Vince had lameness issues.

When he was purchased in July of 2011 from Florida his feet were not in great shape. They were bruised, dry and he was almost walking on his heels. Since then we have been slowly balancing his feet. But when he moved, ever so gradually it became apparent there was something going wrong. The Surgical team repeated all the trotting motions the Neurology team had performed but they added another component - flexation.

First the front legs and then the back were pulled and tucked and after each time, the tech would trot him down the lane, stop at the end and return. With the front legs no amount of flexing or pulling made a difference. But as soon as they came to the back legs it was a completely different story.

The resident, whose name I will not attempt to spell because it was Italian and I never got it right, believed the problem was in the hocks. As the owner of one horse with bad hocks, from a first career as a reining horse, my immediate response was, "Are you sure?" She assured me the final decision would come from the head of the Surgical department, who name I will not attempt to spell because it was strange and I never got it right.  To confirm the decision a block would be injected into Vince's hock to measure the difference in pain when trotting.

More needles! But first we had to have our hocks washed to make sure no dirt could get into the injection site. While the cleaning portion wasn't too bad, they did have to sneak a calming shot into my boy to prevent their heads from getting caved in. Waiting for the block to take hold, the Surgical head came in from his afternoon classes.

The entire parade moved outside. Between the techs, the residents, the students and us there were about forty-eleven people watching my gelding trot back and forth. After three strides, the Surgical head proclaims, "It's not the hocks, it's the suspensory ligament." So back we go into the procedure room for another shot. (Did I mention there was still blood on the floor?)

After waiting inside everyone then troops back outside for another trotting session. Another down and back and Dr. Surgical Head announces that his problem moved from the left leg to the right. Amazing - my horse is so talented. Now the call is to sonogram the suspensory ligaments in the back legs. This means more sedation and a shave for each back leg.

To make a long story short (I know, too late!), we discovered three things:
1) - Vince has a lesion on his left suspensory ligament.
2) - His right ligament is inflamed.
3) - My horse can snore and drool while on drugs.

The lesion on the ligament is not new. It can be caused by repetitive off-balance motion, especially at high speeds. Vince is a jumper. They are prone to these injuries. It is treatable. Vince received a PRP injection. PRP stands for Platelet Rich Plasma. Basically they took Vince's blood, again, and spun it inside a centrifuge to separate the platelets. These are injected into the injured ligament to promote healing. It is very successful, though he might not be as enthusiastic about jumping all the time anymore.

Both horses spent the night, as the procedure was done on Friday morning before all the vets had to go either teach or be in class. After dinner at Ruby Tuesday's and a good night's sleep we awoke and drove back out to the Large Animal Hospital. Vince was just coming out of his sedation haze when we entered the barn. Connor had been wonderful, even feeling safe enough to lay down and sleep overnight.

With clouded skies and too warm temperatures we loaded, paid the bill and left. We ran into rain around the state line which at times was so hard you couldn't see the road in front of the car. Closer to Atlanta the sun came out and the ground dried up and at long last we were back at Blue Skies.

I confess to a large sigh of relief that our worst fears were not confirmed, but there is still a long road to rehab and recovery. For the next 30 days Vince is on stall rest with hand walking. Then we go back to Auburn for a recheck and further instructions. We could tell he already was feeling better because he was cribbing again and his sweet goofy attitude was back today. It was nice to see.

EPM is a horrible illness, and I learned so much I didn't know before. While he does not have an active case I feel for those who are going through the pain and frustration of this disease. I wholeheartedly recommend Auburn University Large Animal Teaching Hospital and its staff. The entire experience, from initial phone call through the on-site process was excellent. At times I felt frustrated, with the trotting and the shots, but most of that is the teaching aspect of the hospital. And no outrageous expense.

On a different but related note - Sneaky is going strong. The swelling to the butt and sheath are still there, but he is hanging in there. He gets walked a little every day, just to assess his movement. We take off his blanket, check the swelling, see how much he ate and how much he drank along with his poop and pee levels, which are still good. So that leaves Sneaky and Vince, two good friends, in slow motion rehab.

While originally this was going to be about Vince and EPM, I have decided to continue this blog. Sneaky and Vince still have a long road to walk and they enjoy being the subject of their own blog. Every person who owns a horse is never amazed when something out of the blue happens. I hope that we can help others who are treating their own brave and loyal companions. You aren't alone, although sometimes it feels that way. We all share the pain.