Two months with Maeby

This spring has been one of setbacks and more setbacks.  This week we’re both down and out - Mae with her leg and me with the flu / sinus infection / other gross things.  Poor Mae, her second month in Texas hasn’t been a good one.  Her life has been reduced to:

Crusty, muddy scabs on her legs

Knobby, jutting bones

Plastic tubes filled with gel or goop shoved into her mouth

Powders, all the different powders mixed in with her food

Blankets on, no wait, blankets off

Strangers’ heads peeking over the paddock fence.  “Is she okay?”  “Is she dead?”

Endless pokes and prods from the vet

In late February, we had drained and cleaned out the abscess from her elbow, and her leg had finally shrunk down to normal size.  Then late last week, an orange-sized, fluid filled lump appeared, all of a sudden, on her lower elbow.  A visiting vet at the barn suspected it was a seroma (almost like a hematoma except not infected) from her leg’s continued efforts to heal from the abscess.  She drained it with a needle and told us to call her if it came back, which it did the next day.  However, this time we had my regular vet drain it, resulting in a HUGE puddle of pus and blood.  I’ll save your stomachs by not posting the pictures, but she has a full leg bandage wrap going on now.  I feel like a broken record saying this, but my fingers are crossed that this is the very last of the health incidents that we have to deal with with Maeby this year.

Despite all of this, she has been and still is a very sweet horse.  She hasn’t kicked out once since we’ve addressed the ulcers and has no problem with us brushing down her sides now.  It goes to show how awful those ulcers really were.  She is also, to quote my trainer, beginning to be very enjoyable to ride.  All of her gaits are fluid and smooth and once we rebuild her muscle, she’ll have the endurance to accompany that.  Mae’s gained about 50 pounds since her ulcer train wreck a month ago and is doing so at a steady rate.

Thank you for all of your well-wishes so far.  The next time I have a monthly post about Mae, I’m optimistic it’ll come with a picture of a fat, happy, and healthy baby horse.