And We Have...

An abcess.  A stinky, nasty, horrifically painful abcess.  The good news is that we have at least located where the pain was originating.  It seemed pretty certain after everything that occurred that she would more than likely be abcessing.  I was hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe, we could avoid it, but alas - no such luck.

A billion phone calls later on Friday, I got a friend's farrier who was in the neighborhood to take a look.  Discussed the entire injury, etc, and he opted to trim the frog very lightly, just to see if there were even any remaining signs of the puncture.  The good news was that there was no sign whatsoever of the puncture, which pretty much means we can rule out any debris being leftover.  Then, the pressure to the frog while trimming mounted just enough, that right before our eyes, the abcess surfaced.  It was right to the right of her frog, at the very tip - draining right before our eyes.

That was around 3 pm yesterday.  At 6 pm I had a short lived wave of excitement, when I saw her feeling good enough to run and buck in her paddock - certainly a positive sign that she was feeling better.

But after a soak, poultice, and bandaging her up for the night, I headed home and arrived back this morning to an incredibly painful pony yet again.  It's part of the process, I do realize.  I just don't have a lot of personal experience with abcesses (knock wood!!!!).  The most I have ever dealt with was one that Delilah popped that lasted a sum total of about three days.

So off we go, to continue packing, poulticing, and praying, that soon - we will get back to the routine.....