Mikey is not coming home today. Or tomorrow. Hopefully Thursday but we are prepared to wait until he's cleared for the five hour drive home.
The short story is Mikey did very well under anesthesia, the surgery was successful, but it is questionable if he'll be competition sound again. He was slightly off jogging on pavement, and almost crippled after a flex test before surgery.
Surgery was long (he was under for around 3 hours, from drop room to prep and surgery to wrapping and recovery room) and was very complicated.
He recovered well and stood up about 30 min after going to the recovery room. The surgeon said it was one of the most complicated surgeries she has ever done and I am eternally grateful to her for changing strategies mid surgery and persisting on finding the chips.
After surgery he had a 50 to 75% chance at being sound again. Without surgery he would have been in pain the rest of his life and lame, so he's still better off. He had a torn tendon on the inside of the joint and crushed bone (where the chips came from) on the outside of the joint. The chips destroyed some cartilage as they floated around and some embedded themselves in a tendon. He will get stem cell treatment to the tendon on Thursday, which will give him a better shot at being sound. He'll get a series of legend iv after the stitches come out. After that he'll have APS treatment to the cartilage to help heal some of the damage. In about 6 months we can evaluate if he will be able to go back to normal work with our old goals.
I have a ton of pictures. I was able to watch the whole surgery from an observation room, which was very cool. But nothing before Friday or the weekend, I need a laptop to write a proper post, or more likely posts.
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| Mikey's chips/fragments. |
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| Long story here too, but essentially Mikey has the OSU staff wrapped around his little hoof so tight that he's being spoiled wonderfully. And I love it. |
Wow. I can't imagine (no, actually, I completely can.). What a range of emotions you must be going through. Serious kudos for keeping it together like you are, and being their for Mikey.
ReplyDeleteWhat a horse!
Thank you! I know you know the range of emotions and how to function while they're running rampant. I've been a little detached from it I think. Our house refinance people were being incredible assholes during the surgery so I had fire for blood by the time I got to see him so that balanced out any crying that would have happened. I did end up almost crying my eyes out in front of his vet when we came back to check on him around 9. We were chatting about him and she was like, are you ok? Inquires into the horse I can deal with, me, I break down.
DeleteThey are seriously the best here - after him being here once, I would be completely comfortable leaving him or sending him if I couldn't come myself. A phone call (and maybe a texted pic or two!) would be enough for me to know he's fine.
That level of confidence in the vet hospital must have feel so good!
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