Exploits of a DIY vet

[tripperfunster]

Remember that time I Circumsized a duck? Of course you do! Unless you've blocked it out, which I totally understand.

Well this time it was my horse, although, thankfully, his penis was just fine and needed no attention from me.

Spock is old and blind and often gets bullied by my other horses. To cut down on this, we corral him by himself at feeding time so they don't push him around and steal his food, but somewhere, somehow, he got a good bite on his shoulder and it swelled right up.

It didn't seem infected. It wasn't warm to the touch, and although swollen, it wasn't firm, just ... fluidy. Kind of like and I.V. bag. (or a breast implant??) My son once twisted his knee quite badly and it swelled up and the doctors drained it with a large gauge needle. HOW HARD COULD IT BE, AMIRITE?

So, I went out with my trusty pumpkin carving craft knife, some polysporin and three paper towels. I had hubby hold him in place and I went to work. Spock didn't mind at all, just ate his oats and ignored me completely, as did hubby, because he cannot handle blood. ;)

Well, lets just say that three paper towels was about 300 short of what I needed. You'd think I'd slit his throat instead of this boo boo. Except, of course, that the blood was watery and brownish, not artery-red. 200 gallons later, I slathered on the polysporin, and we both went our separate ways.

Except it came back.

I called the vet, and he said that what i'd done was pretty much exactly what he would have, except I needed to CUT THE HOLE BIGGER and then slather it with Vaseline, so that it stayed open and the wound could continue to drain. Yummy! Thank god it's too cold for bugs now, because yuck.



This time, when I cut it open, there were CHUNKS of ... stuff? The vet said coagulated proteins. Very Walking Dead. I am quite convinced, after slicing him open and having to ... milk the gunk out of this wound, that I am totes prepared for the grossness of a zombie apocalypse.



BTW, hubby wasn't home, so I did this on my own, and Spock happily stood there, munching on his bucket of oats while I sliced and squeezed and squished and vaselined him. It's obviously not bothering him much.

Comments

[facecat.livejournal.com]

Why Vaseline? Vaseline forms a seal over the wound so it doesn't heal properly from the inside out. My cat had an abscess & I used antibiotic ointment & vet said never to use an ointment on an open wound. Maybe horses are different? Poor guy. Why are the other horses mean to him?

I read your duck story. lmao. There has to be a duck you/me joke in there somewhere.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

See, the vet didn't want it to heal at the incision. He wants it to remain open so that the wound can drain. It won#t heal properly if it keeps filling with fluid.