By Patty Wilber
Good News first! Progeny #1 graduated from Loyola Law School last weekend!
The Law School Grad!!!
Her boyfriend (Mr. Chocolate Covered Bacon Roses) was able to fly in from Hawaii, Progeny #2 was there, and so were her wonderful grandparents (my mom and dad), so we had a most excellent weekend!
Both kids!!
It was great to have the grandparents there!!
Semi Good News second: The Law School Grad immediately (Tuesday) moved to Hawaii with the Bacon Roses Guy and her cat Baxter, which is FABULOUS for them. On the other hand, my heart hates that she is so far away (not that I was jetting off to LA all that often to see her when she was there).
Hawaii doesn’t suck–and hey it is great place to visit!
I think all my emotion is a result of the fact that she is entering a New Era in her life–kind of like when mom’s cry because their kids are off to kindergarten. Except I didn’t shed a tear when they went to kindergarten. Nope. Not a one. I had trouble when they graduated from college (!!), and now this moving to Hawaii thing! Go figure.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And now for the Bad News: Cometa broke his head.
(He got in an argument with his pen mate, it seems. Apparently, The Boss of the Universe is now Boss of the Universe, Except for That One Other Boss.)
On Monday, as we were flying home from the graduation, I got a call from my stall cleaner, who, while shoveling horse excrement, actually took the time to look at the horses. He saw Cometa’s eye was swollen. I was impressed. Many people are not that observant.
We got home in the evening, thank goodness and …EW!
Eye didn’t like it. Cometa was eating and acting normally, but he needed some vet help.
Next day, the vet came. She also said, “EW! ” and then, “That looks bad.” Great. Now I feel much better (or not!) I was hoping she’d lie to me, at least a little.
Tuesday. Eye agreed. Bad.
Look how swollen he is above his eye and how his third eyelid is protruding. He could not move his eyelids. He had a bit of blood in his left nostril.
She sedated him and peeled apart his ginormus eyelids. She dilated his eye with atropine and was able to see that his eyeball was still intact and his lens appeared whole. There is perhaps some internal damage.
Then she gently palpated his forehead, which exhibited “crepitus”…creaking and popping noises above one of his sinuses. He did not break the bone around his eye, but the bone above that sinus–a bit smushed.
The fracture probably contributed to his exceedingly gross eyelid edema.
The vet gave him IV (in the vein) banamine (a pain killer with anti-inflammatory properties), and globbed a lot of antibiotic (two kinds) in and on the eye to both prevent infection and keep all the protruding tissue moist.
Eye put a fly mask on him for the afternoon and a friend luckily had a horsey pirate mask (because she recently had a horse with an eye ulcer–on the left–same side), so by afternoon, we had the boy re-gooped,
Regooped with a triple antibiotic and a silver containing salve. (Silver is antimicrobial).The lower eyelid swelling got worse as the day progressed.
and regarbed.
Eye Matey!
Too bad it is not closer to Halloween.
“One Eye was a race horse…” (to the tune of “Stewball was a Racehorse”). The rig reminds me of racing gear!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuGt66WyO-8
Learned this song when I worked at horse camp: K-Arrow! Lucky so now, 33 (yikes 33?) years later, I can put it in a blog.
Meanwhile, the horse is on a banamine 1x/day, antibiotic application 4x/day and we will wait until the swelling goes down enough to reassess the damage.
He is feeling pretty perky--banging the gate at meal-times to make sure no one forgets him (as if), keeping his (one) eye open for unsecured gates, and begging me to let him out with the youngsters in the north lot.
NO Cometa! Your eye is Not Good, your nose is still leaking a little blood, and you have a divot in your head!
By Thursday, some improvement had occurred.
You can see his eye!!! The swelling above his eye is much improved. His lower eyelid still looks pretty bad. You can see the slight depression in his skull between his white mark and his eye.
He may lose some vision, but that remains to been “seen”.
The vet will return next week and if all is going well, we can start him on steroids (in his eye, oh joy!), to further reduce inflammation and speed healing.
Eye yi yi.
Poor guy.
OUCH OUCH OUCH! Poor Cometa!
(Happiness to Progeny #1!)
I know, right? All that bulgy eye tissue. It is staying moist–between the eye cup, the goop and his eye is watery. Thank goodness.
Poor Cometa…. makes me flinch to think about it, let alone look at it.
Which Loyola was the graduation from?
She graduated from the Loyola in Los Angeles. I am happy to report that the horse seems not to be in a whole lot of pain. He finches a little when I put the antibiotics on, but nothing major.
Loyola of the South for my M.Ed. I am glad that Cometa appears not to be in pain. I don’t think there’s anything worse than a critter who depends on you being in pain and being helpless to help.
He is a very low key guy, so it maybe he is masking some, but he did get sick once and boy he moped around…and just 5 minutes ago he was messing with the mare in the next door pen–a lot more messing than I thought was APPROPRIATE given his eye. But can’t tell him that! (Since he’s a horse after all!)
So he’s just horsing around, eh? Sounds like he IS on the road to recovery,
It looks better this evening than this morning!
Poor Boss! And it’s his blue eye too! He was perky last night when I came to visit him. And friendly. He kindly acknowledged that I came to see him, agreed that he is the boss, and even let me kiss him… on his right side, of course. Then, he walked over to the hay room and as Wesley went in to retrieve a rake, Cometa felt along the wall with his nose until he found the door and pushed it open. (From where Cometa was standing the door was located on his left side.) Darn that Wesley! He held the door closed! (Well, that’s what Cometa was thinking anyway.)
He is quite the character. He’s my fav!
Thanks Sherry! Cometa was only in that pen, because I had saddled the others and Left a Gate Open!!!
I just read everything about Cometa, unbelievable! We all try to be so careful with our animals and still bad things happen…SAD!
He is getting better and better though!
what do you call the mask you put on with the eye patch and where would I be able to buy one.