I Had a Bad Feeling

The ocular lavage was supposed to make things easier for both myself and my mare, but it seemed that every day there was a new challenge. I was supposed to be administering her eye medicines 4-6 times every day but that only happened for the first two days. After that, there were problems with the lavage tubing becoming pinched shut just above the port, followed by the port itself leaking. It seemed that every day, I was calling the Vet to come over and fix the lavage system.....and paying a lot of money each time. 

But worst of all, was that Apache seemed to be feeling more pain every day, even with the daily pain meds I was giving her, along with the powdered antibiotics that I fed her with applesauce through a syringe. She was starting to act a lot different than the calm, gentle, quiet horse I knew. Instead, her behavior involved spinning in circles, twitching on the right side of her face and neck, flinging her neck to the right, and pinning her ears. She even lost her appetite and barely nibbled her hay or pellets.

At this point I discussed, with the Vet the option of removing Apache's eye, again. I just wanted her pain to be over. But he wasn't comfortable with that plan of action and felt it would be better to save her eye at all costs, even if the eye lost most, if not all, vision, and even at the risk of her injuring that blind, or mostly blind eye, again, and even at the risk of future infections and more pain.

 

I cried every day as it broke my heart to watch her in so much pain. And I watched her a lot as I had driven my horse trailer up to the barn and set it up so I could sleep inside and be easily available to administer the meds to her right eye many times a day.  

But it got to the point that Apache wouldn't even allow me to administer any of the meds through her lavage system. She wouldn't permit me to touch her on her right side anymore. She even threatened to rear when I tried.

And then, when I checked on her that afternoon, during a storm, I noticed that her eye was oozing thick white fluid and the eye was greatly swollen. And most importantly, Apache was in terrible pain.

I immediately called another Vet, that I knew specialized in equine surgery, for a second opinion and I was told to bring Apache in the next day.

I don't know how I knew, but I had a bad feeling that Apache's eye had ruptured.

I felt a little disloyal for calling another Vet, but my job as a dedicated horseowner is to make sure my horse has the best care possible and everything is being done to help keep her healthy, comfortable and pain free.

And at that point, I didn't feel like the first Vet was doing any of those things. So, I needed to be pro-active and make some very tough decisions, and deal with any uncomfortable consequences later. 

Most of all, I just wanted my mare to not suffer from severe pain anymore.


To Be Continued....