Fungus Leg

Here is a picture of Bobby ears so hopefully the first thing that pops up for you isn't pus.

go no further if medical mysteries make you queasy.
if they don't, where were you two weeks ago when i was dry heaving in the aisle?

After all the lead up to sharing these pictures, I hope their grossness fulfills all you freaks that wanted to see them. Maybe it's just me, but I would rather having huge open wounds with gushing blood than the smallest pocket of pus. Even just thinking about it makes me gag. I have no stomach for such things, so maybe some of you won't find these as awful as I did.

where we started, back in january

february, when i first had the vet look at it

february

february

losing hair in march when i had the vet
out for the second time.

5/10, day before 3rd vet appointment.
the swelling was daily for over a year
 until he got moving.

5/12, first full day of smzs. the pus
scalded his cannon and i was peeling
hair off it for days.

5/12
a lot of that blood is from the biopsy sites

5/13

5/13. this is very typical of how
sarcoidosis presents on whole body when
it's generalized. 

5/15. the vet had me using chlorhex
cream which fortunately i ran out of
quickly as it was making his skin worse

5/15

5/16. this was the day after starting
stacie's miracle cream recommendation

5/16

5/16

5/21. you can see the deformation of
the hoof that had farrier so worried

5/21

5/22. i was waiting for a new tub of
krudzapper so i scrubbed it clean with castile
soap and was stunned at the progress.

5/22

5/23. a day and night of silvadene dried
it out and set it back a bit.

5/23

5/27. back on krudzapper and much better

5/27

5/29. looking almost like a normal leg again!

5/29

So there you go. That's what localized sarcoidosis looks like in an otherwise healthy Thoroughbred. I can't recommend Krudzapper enough for a mild, conditioning topical. His skin was so burned up from the other things we tried that I was afraid to put anything else on it, but this stuff has made a huge difference in not only clearing up the scabby crust, but keeping the skin from drying out and splitting and helping the hair start to grow back. It can't cure cancer, but it can make it look acceptable to the public eye again!

Suck it, cancer!

After one of the most stressful weeks ever last week where I was a hot mess express--not sleeping, randomly crying, and being a complete scatterbrained bitch that wanted to punch everyone that opened their mouths about their own horse--Friday evening I finally got in touch with my vet again and got some good news.

And then flipped my shit on her a little bit.

The good news is that we got our best case scenario: the cancer is localized to Bobby's leg, and further testing didn't reveal anything more nefarious than the original diagnosis. That, of course, is enough of a problem all on its own. Localized doesn't necessarily mean curable, but it's better than the other two options which both end with guaranteed euthanasia.

I lost it on her because she found that out on Thursday and didn't bother to call me. I put in a call to the office as soon as they opened Friday morning, and she didn't get around to calling me back well into the evening. We finally got around to discussing his feet wherein she brushed off all my relayed information from Farrier and basically told me to make an appointment if I wanted her to look at him again, or just go ahead and pull his shoes and order Easy Boots for the heel pain.

..........

Um. No. To both of those things.

I won't go into my vet rant right now, but let's just say that BM and Farrier echoed my sentiments.

feels dubious about this "vet work". same, bobby.

On Saturday I got on Bobby bareback to see how he was feeling. He was still sore on the LF inside heel, not wanting to do any sort of turning, but feeling pretty okay on the straightaways. I let him meander out of the ring and down to the pond where he got some good grazing in while I texted Farrier. I started him on a gram of bute that he got Saturday night and Sunday and Monday morning.

He didn't do anything Sunday, but Monday I was back aboard. The LF seemed a titch short. Not lame, but since I was looking for something I could feel that tiny hitch. The RF, however, felt fantastic. There was nothing there that was concerning to me and the outside of it continues to heal up to a normal looking albeit hairless leg. (Full pics coming tomorrow.) The second antibiotic we added finally seems to have kicked in and made a huge difference in the swelling to that leg. For how much I'm shelling out for meds, I'm glad to see they're actually doing their job!

We managed fifteen minutes of w/t/c where Bobby was ripping my arms out, and I left off the bute this morning to see if he held up to getting a real ride again.

He. Felt. Phenomenal.

i mean, does this not look like the face of a horse that could beat cancer?

We stuck to w/t because if he's sound at the trot then he's sound at the canter and I was having too much fun letting him coast along on a long rein in my jump tack because....

Well, I scratched all my dressage shows, including the one this weekend, so that might have kind of freed up Sunday to go to a hunter show around the corner. The nice thing about hunter shows is that you don't have to send entries and money in weeks in advance. If he's not sound this weekend, no sweat, we just won't pop over there. If he is, this barn has great footing and I want to grab every single opportunity I can to keep getting this horse out while we still have the chance.

I'll give him tomorrow off, and then we'll (hopefully) finally get a lesson in on Thursday where BM can give me a set of eyes to see where we're at. Keep up the good work, Bobby! You've become far too expensive to do anything else.