Heckuva 30 hours here......

So much has transpired in the past 30 hours, I hardly know where to begin.....

As of the last post, things sounded very grim for the two horses. The gelding was showing a monstrous swelling in the groin area, for one, and the mare had become rather unresponsive. I was pretty well stressed out, and first thing this morning I started making phone calls.

Three phone calls later I had determined that the mare was possibly colicking, or had developing circulation issues, and was severely dehydrated. The gelding was perky, eating, and he had drunnk some apple flavored water in the late evening-but had not managed to urinate.

A few hours later, after a number of other calls, I thought that AER was getting a vet out and that I would be billed for having him checked over. At this time, the vet at the clinic said that they needed a heated faciltity asap. And I was stuck at work, of course. Which turned out to be rather more of a busy Monday than I bargained for, but that's beside the point.

At about 1pm I learned that the vet wouldn't go see them until the owner called. The owner, in this case, being me. So I called, and got that started, sort of. Next call was to the gal that owned the mare (and who had orginally rescued them in the first place) to tell her she had to make two calls....one to AER to gift the mare, and secondly to call the clinic and get vet out, period. An hour os so later I managed to peice together that a vet would be there around 4 pm, and so would AER, with trailer.

Whew.

I waited and worried until around 5, when I finally broke down and started calling again. The mare was loaded up and taken to an AER foster home, which has space (heated!) for one. The gelding is now (as of six pm) at the clinic for the next couple of days, and blood has been drawn to check liver and kidney function. I won't know the results until tomorrow of course.

All I have heard, second and third hand, is that the gelding has points (needs float), vet put him at a CS 3, and that I needn't worry about the accumulation of fluids in the groin and legs, it's due to protien levels in his system.

IF the blood panel shows nothing severely out of whack, AND the vet says okay, in theory he could come home in a couple days ( as soon as the weather breaks here). I can get him double blanketed, and I can manage a 4 times a day mash for the next ten days, and then three times a day afterwards-bless my staunch friends' big heart to feed a mash during the day while I am at work.

In the midst of this, I got all sorts of flack from my husband, and others, about the money, the time, and whatnot....and you know what I say to that?

Merry Christmas to me-

Whether he's euthanized or not, he deserves better than he's had, and that's that.