It has been over a month and Max is still at the equine hospital. He had an impaction on December 7th. The 8th I stayed up with him until 1:00 am December 9th. I started to page the vet at 7:00 am on the 9th and finally made contact around 8:30 am. I told them Max was not moving, not eating and not really drinking. He appeared to be blind in his left eye. He was not looking good at all. They told me to bring him right into the vet.
I was doubtful that I could load Max because everytime I approached him, he would turn his hind feet towards me. When I went out, I took a bucket of warm water as it was in the lower 20s...I held it for him...and he drank! I then put a halter on him and started to lead him to the trailer. He was hurting, I could tell. And I also knew the ONLY reason he was following me was because he trusted me.
When we were about ten feet from the trailer, he stopped. I could not get him to move. About that time, my son Bear was feeding his horse, Diamond. I asked him to bring the feed and we used that to tempt Max into the horse trailer. IT WORKED! Max loaded just as faithfully as always. I said a prayer of thanks.
Once we were at the vet's office, we took his blanket off so she could give Max an exam. As soon as that blanket was off, my heart broke. He was so SWOLLEN! The blanket that had been loose the night before was now so tight that there was an indention around his neck: almost a 1/2 inch deep! He could only walk slowly. We determined that he had a reaction to the vitamin shot that I had given him on Tuesday night. Even though I had used a new needle and syringe and wiped his neck with alcohol, the fact that the bottle was almost empty was not good. Plus I used a 3/4 inch needle. I now know that one should always use at least a 1 1/2 inch needle. He ended up fighting the bacteria that causes gangrene.
Here is a link to learn more about what he had: http://www.ivis.org/proceedings/aaep/2002/910102000131.PDF
I will post more tomorrow about Max's fight for life.
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