Wow. I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since I last posted. I have no idea why but I think it’s because there’s so many tabs open in my brain all the time that I couldn’t pick a topic and trying to write out what goes on in my brain would take several graphs and pages. The way the world is right now has my brain going on turbo boost and there’s too many topics so I’ll start with one.
Boody. Boody is Zippa’s (who’s written about in the previous post) sister so I shouldn’t be surprised by the following.
If you’ve read my prior posts you know I have a mare I call Boody (registered name Imajetalena) who I love like all my others but she holds a special place in my heart and Scott loves her as much as I do. I think Boody actually likes him more than me, she’ll do anything for him. So after getting Oakie healed up from her injuries and starting to ride her again all went along smooth for a few weeks, it’s always just a few weeks at a time. It’s finally summer time and we’re getting to ride and enjoy ourselves. Fourth of July weekend I noticed Boody had some nasty swelling on her chest that was not normal and swelling almost in front of my eyes. I knew this was abnormal so I called a friend of ours who is a vet. She came right away and indicated it looks like a classic case of pigeon fever. I agreed it did look like that but I just didn’t think it was. She took samples and until we knew otherwise we would treat as if it was pigeon fever. It took over a week to get the result back due to the tests coming back as contaminated with bacteria. Took more samples and sent off. In the meantime Boody is in isolation and being treated as if she’s contagious which is a pain to deal with but you do what you gotta do. The swelling kept growing so two drain holes were put in her chest. If you see a pic of pigeon fever you’ll see the holes and puss, etc oozing out. We could barely get any fluid out of the drain holes and in the meantime Boody’s legs kept swelling. Her temp and appetite stayed steady but she was getting depressed and her legs were swelling so badly the skin was splitting and oozing which is very painful. Finally we get test results, it’s not pigeon fever but a bacterial infection. So, she’s not contagious which is a relief but we’re getting pretty worried about how bad she is swelling. Normal treatments for swelling are not helping much and she could barely bend her legs. The official diagnosis was lymphangitis. Since it was a bacteria that’s severe (and found in the ground everywhere), the chances of survival are 50/50. At this point and after almost two weeks of wondering and worrying about what’s going on, I had to shed some tears, right into Boody’s neck. I felt so bad for her. For reasons I don’t know, if the swelling had gone into her 4th leg (it had just gone into 3 legs so far) her chances decreased significantly. Also turns out the antibiotic needed to treat this particular bacteria has it’s risks which are a 50/50 chance she’ll die within a few minutes of administration or it would help. That was not a decision I wanted to make. So, more worry, tears and stress. In a few more days big tough Boody started getting better. The swelling was decreasing and her eyes were getting brighter and she was moving more. She eventually came completely out of it but it took several weeks. This is the same mare that suffered significant ligament injuries that stopped her show career. She’ll never be totally sound again but she is rideable. This mare would still go out and try to lay down a reining pattern and run a cow down the fence even if her legs fell off. She is the absolute toughest horse I have ever seen. More heart than brains. A lot like my old dog Elly Mae.
Boody bounced back from that and was used quite a bit later in the summer as a turn back horse in the cutting pen and went on several trail rides. She’s still doing fine and there really is no description for her other that’s “just Boody”.
This was a condition I’d never heard of in 40 years of having horses in my life. Leave it to one of my animals to come down with some rare ailment. So, remember to hug your animals because we really never know when they could be gone.
I’ve attached some pics of swelling. Happy trails.
Horseshoes and Hormones 