Founder Rehab Ranch Blog

Sadly, surgery did not go well today for Paris. As the 2nd hour of surgery passed, we were faced with what we didn’t want to hear, but was apparent by watching the surgery - the joint was too far damaged for repair, and she was euthanized before waking up. As usual, Dr. Yarbrough was and is the best. I’m certain that he spent way more time trying to make this joint functional than he needed to, but he really wanted to make this work. He is one very special vet; we are deeply indebted to him and his talents.

The joint surface was surprisingly good, but the structures in the rear of the joint, the sesamoid bones and the ligaments/tendons, were all very scarred and tight. The sesamoid bones were all scarred together and calcified. The ligaments were so tight… it just wasn’t going to leave Paris with a usable and stable lower leg.  

I want to thank everyone for your emotional (and financial) support for this special young horse. We know she felt all of the love and happiness we could give her the past few months.

And, we know that more horses like Paris are out there.  We have to remember the wonderful success we’ve had with horses like Midnight and Hobbs / Sundance.  But that doesn’t stop the tears today and yesterday….  and anytime we think of Paris.

Well, as I said earlier, we hoped the second surgery wouldn’t be needed.  But going in to the rehab, we knew her deformity was major and the brace was a “first-ditch” effort.  Nature just turned out to be stronger than the brace could deal with!

Saturday morning our dear Dr. Yarbrough of Loomis Basin Equine Medical Center will be doing surgery to fuse the fetlock joint into position.  This is a much more complicated surgery than the first one, and involves much more risk of complication.  The entire joint will be opened, cleaned out and repositioned.  Because the need for after care is so critical, and the issues that can occur with the cast, Paris will stay at Loomis for about a week post op. 

Beth and I will be there for the surgery, but unlike the last one we will not be able to be in the operating room during the procedure (infection control).  The cool thing is that Loomis has a closed circuit TV setup so we will be able to watch what is happening, and hopefully we can ask someone to take pictures from in the surgery center. 

Because she has to stay at Loomis for a week, in “intensive care”, this surgery isn’t cheap.  Our initial estimate, barring complications, is over $3,000.  If you would like to help with the expense of the care, you can either send payments to her account directly at Loomis Basin or via the Paypal button on our home page.

Some people may ask, why we are spending more money to fix her? 

Paris has grown very dear to us.  And when I’m talking with her every night as I clean her stall, I promise her she will never have to again endure the hardships she has encountered up to this point in her young life.  Born in a dog run, her mother starved literally to death to save her life.  Cared for, then ignored again.  And allowed to have her leg get to this point when it could have been dealt with a year ago and been absolutely fine with virtually no effort.  All this happened to the sweetest, best natured, most loving horse in the world.  She could have been someones absolutely perfect horse!  And I promise her every day that she is loved and that we will care for her, no matter what. 

Wish her good luck and all the best thoughts and prayers for surgery!

I love reading other blogs, so I know I need to keep mine up.  So… here we go.

Mostly I owe an update on Paris BIG time!  The computer that our website files were on has temporarily died.  I had to reinstall all of the files onto my laptop and will update the actual site soon.  Yes, I’ve heard  you

Paris is such a doll…  we just love her to pieces.  She is the most people oriented horse I have ever known, which makes it hard to keep her in a stall away from the other young horses.  Of course she can’t interact with them right now; we have nearly all hills and hills=mud where we live.  So she’s stuck inside except when we can take her out for a visit.  And oh, does she love that!  Day before yesterday she was having so much fun “meeting” some of the other horses that she nearly let out a buck!

All of the love and “getting to know the real you” makes it hard to stay objective about her care.  As those who follow on BAEN know, she had a setback about a month ago with some significant tissue damage to the front of her leg under the brace.  We discontinued the brace until most of the damage had healed, then tried again.  As hard as it is to give up on what should have been a good solution, we have decided that the brace is not going to work.

First, it is obvious with the amount of scar tissue around the joint that getting the joint to move into position is no easy, quick task.  No one knows how long it could take, but we’ve been using the brace mostly on, some off, for over 2 months and basically see very little progress.  The best we have been able to get is close to vertical, and the amount of pressure in the brace needed to get there is what is causing the tissue damage. 

Second, the very odd position of her leg is no doubt causing major damage in her foot.  We can see subtle changes in the hoof wall and Xrays show the rotation of the foot bones WAY out of position.  As important as the joints are, we have seen too many horses with severe foot problems and know that these are also extremely difficult to deal with.

So, we have decided that Paris should have the fusion surgery.  Not an easy decision…  but really it is that or put her down. 

Paris’ life has, for lack of a better phrase, sucked from the start.  And no one could ask for a kinder soul or a more trusting one.  All that we put her through, surgery, brace changes daily, certainly pain and confinement…  and she nickers at us every time we come to the barn.  (OK, maybe part of that is that she knows she gets food when we show up too!)  Paris could have been the worlds best horse; calm, loving, do anything you want.  And fate didn’t give her that for her first couple of years, so we want to do it now.

Naturally we have to figure out the financial side again.  Loomis Basin’s charges will be about $2,400 for the surgery because she has to stay for a week to adjust to the cast that she will wear for a while.  We don’t yet know Dr. Yarbrough’s charges, but can estimate that in total we’ll need to find close to $3,000 somewhere for the surgery.

Time to leave work, drive home for an hour and think about where we can go begging…..

Peg

The last step of the first stage is done… whew!  Sundance/Hobbs got his toe extension and shoes on Tuesday.  “Houston, we have heel contact”  

On the website there is a comparison hoof page; I didn’t realize there was such a change.  Our team and our little guy are working very, very hard to get this guy back to where he should have been all along.

Thanks for all of the emotional (and financial) support from everyone following his story.  We just couldn’t do it without you!

The short version:  surgery over, so far - so good. 

 The version you want to know about:

We arrived in Loomis about 9:30 am.  The Loomis Basin Equine Medical Center is a very impressive facility (thanks to those who recommended the place…)  Dr. Tom Yarbrough was Hobbs/Sundance’s surgeon, assisted by wonderful techs and other staff members.  They are obviously a caring group of people. 

As an aside, I do believe we were the only horse there that had mud on his hooves and body - so embarrasing

Anyway, the first order of business was chest X-rays.  Since he arrived, Hobbs/Sundance has been battling high white cell counts in his blood work and has had some congestion.  His congestion is cleared up, and his blood work is near normal, but our regular vet wanted to see them just to get a picture on what is going on.  Apparently he does have some inflammation still, and we were given the option of delaying surgery again until he is fully recovered.  But, based on his great attitude and brightness (plus the $3.00 per gallon for the diesel to get up and back!) we decided to go ahead.

His leg was shaved, scrubbed for 5 minutes or so, then Beth and I were asked to “please wait outside in the sunshine” while they knocked Hobbs/Sundance out with the Ketamine and Dermosidan (sp?) No doubt they didn’t want us to see the hauling around with the crane or something .

But, once he was down we were allowed to observe from a distance as the surgery was done.  The check ligament was isolated from the other various things in the area (tendons, etc.) then cut.  The ligament is pretty large - I’d guess slightly shy of 1/2 of an inch.  The incision was small, on the back side of his leg, and once the ligament was cut he was sutured closed and wrapped.

Then the one disappointment of the day came when we found out that their farrier doesn’t work on Mondays so no one would be setting the toe extension shoe that he needs.  Rats!  We were told that would be done at the same time.  (maybe he said it should be done at the same time.  In any case, he did apply an Epoxy toe buildup and used a dremmel tool to do some shaping of the hoof and bring the heel down just a hair. 

On the drive home, we called UC Davis’ farrier department in hopes they could see us on short notice.  No matter how much begging we did, the answer was still no.  (but if they could only see how cute he is!)  So we have an appointment on Wednesday afternoon for the shoe fitting. 

When we first saw him outside after surgery it appeared that he is putting some weight on the heel and it might be actually landing already.  It is a little hard to tell, frankly.  Its clear that there is some change in the use of the foot already, even tho it must hurt!

So home for stall rest, more antibiotics, bute, bandage changes and some hand walking.  Then we just work and work and work on getting him to weight the heel and bring it down as quickly as he will allow.

Keep your fingers and toes crossed…  so far so good!

We’re taking Sundance / Hobbs to Lommis Basin next Monday for the check ligament desmotomy.  This is the more conservative, first step treatment.  He will get some kind of glued-on shoe at the same time then the work starts!

He’s feeling great, off quarantine, and one thing that amazes me is how well he gets along on this foot.  If he just keeps up the walking pace he does now after the surgery, no doubt we will get this thing fixed good enough to make him very functional.  Keep all those fingers and hooves crossed!

Peg

Our vet checked out Sundance today and, while he’s doing great, he still has a bit of congestion.  He does NOT have Strangles!!!!!  Great news…  that total quarantine with foot baths, etc. is a pain (but, naturally, we have to do it!)

So surgery will be either Saturday, April 22 or *maybe* sometime earlier that week.   Seems like a long time to wait, but better safe than sorry.  Gives us more time to grow to love the little guy

Tonight we finished the first round of antibiotics for Sundance…  thank goodness.  He’s been on injectable Naxcel, 15cc, and holding a 400 lb baby still for shots is no simple task!  He is such a good boy for all of this.  If he wasn’t so easy going, this could be a really hard process! 

Tomorrow the vet comes back for more blood work and to evaluate where he stands to schedule surgery. 

We tried an experiment this evening; Sundance now has a custom fitted Easy Boot on his club foot, with a foam wedge on the bottom and foam inside to help with fit (as you can imagine, his foot doesn’t exactly fit a boot!)  Pictures on the main web site at http://www.founder-rehab.com .

So, if we are lucky and get a totally clear vet report we are hoping she’ll clear him for surgery April 1.  Otherwise, if she’s conservative, we’ll probably do it April 15.  The surgery at Loomis will be about $700, not including castration.  We’ve decided to deal with one pain issue at a time

Check back for updates on the boot!

Day 3 of injections for whatever it is he has…  the cultures should be back Monday and the vet is taking more blood on Monday too.  For the first couple of days we had to twitch him to keep him still enough to give the shots (15cc of semi-thick stuff).  But tonight, with a slightly smaller needle, no twitch needed.

Beth has been working on getting him to pick up his feet, and tonight Beth’s daughter Amy was able to pick up one of his fronts.  He’s such a good little guy!

No doubt about it… we are hooked on Sundance. 

We’re hopeful that we can find that he is well enough that surgery can go forward next weekend; Vet wants us to wait a couple of additional weeks to finish up a full course of antibiotics.  (injections plus a couple of weeks on oral).  Fingers crossed that the labs come back great…..

Hi all, another update…
This morning (Wednesday) I spoke with Dr Yarborough at Loomis Basin, he is an orthopedic surgeon (equine). I really liked him!

He said the prognosis was very good… and was MUCH more upbeat. He also sounded like he had seen this plenty of times, and had personal experience with this going very well..

The one thing I liked the MOST was that he had a ’stepwise approach’, He would like to do the check ligament desmotomy first, then give him some time and hoofcare to bring the heel down… and if that doesn’t work, then do the tenotomy…. and see if that gives us enough loosening… etc.

I like that… he also was clear, the desmotomy will NOT decrease his athletic ability at all! The tenotomy might, so best to do the least of the surgeries.

Then, the illness…. today the vet came and looked at him… mumbled about how surgeons and internal medicine vets ‘butt heads’ over ‘this stuff’… pronounced him very sick, broncho-pneumonia, nasal congestion, cough of course, fever, swollen lymph nodes, sore throat…. ack. Anyway, starting on IM antibiotics tonight, cough syrup, etc… and redo labs on Monday with another exam… glad I called her…. she is confident that the Naxcel will cover strangles if that is what it is… and he is not abscessing yet if it is, so we are ok.. (she did a culture to identify what we are dealing with) and he has to come into the barn.  Fingers crossed that it is NOT strangles, as he won’t be totally isolated there, but with the pneumonia, and the forecasted rain on Friday, whatcha gonna do…. ??