And that was that

As scheduled, the vet was out yesterday afternoon to get another set of eyes on Bobby and take some new images of the cursed RF.

if you just, you know, removed the upper half
it looks pretty okay on the outside.

Bobby seemed to be holding up well with his new diet and restricted turnout to the indoor. Everyone kept telling me how he was prancing around the ring looking happy and cheerful. In his stall his attitude has been bright and perky, and he hasn't made any fuss about his new schedule.

"HAI I NEED EXTRA COOKIES PLZ."

Bobby's usual vet is out of town all week, but I liked our substitute vet a lot. She was perfunctory and didn't get caught up oohing and ahhing over his leg when clearly his foot was the disaster area. She got the facts, gave me the facts, and that was that. She had me take him to the indoor to walk him out and trot him back, both of which he did with zero hesitation despite being severely crippled.

I told her he'd never had to be tranqed to get rads before and she put the syringe away without argument. He was a little difficult to get pictures of because he was so uncomfortable standing on the blocks, but we made it work and got what we needed. Really, after the first shot, there wasn't much of a need to take anything else.

I know absolutely nothing about reading x-rays or what the inside of a horse is supposed to look like, but even I could see as soon as the image popped up we were fucked. Positively, no returns fucked. Where we were hoping for maybe an abscess track or mild rotation, instead his coffin bone had dropped and was about 2mm from blowing through the bottom of his sole.

You can't un-drop a coffin bone. Best case scenario was he grew a massive amount of sole in a short amount of time and we could figure out shoeing to keep him pasture sound. But realistically Bobby has always had bad feet, and he obviously wasn't about to grow a new one out of thin air.

The vet's best guess was that it wasn't diet related at all, but that it all came back full circle to the fucking sarcoidosis. She felt that whatever hot mess mystery was going on in the coronary band had damaged the connective tissue to the coffin bone causing the rapid sinking.

You can't cure sarcoidosis. You can't regrow the inside of a broken foot. As vet handed over a bottle of Bute and gave Bobby's giant lug head a hug, she told me I had maybe two weeks before the coffin bone was probably going to come through. "I've never had a horse where I wanted to do a leg transplant so badly."

"does leg transplant mean moar cookies?"

The RF was burning up this morning and we're on high alert for signs the LF wants to go, too. After a sleepless night, the appointment is set for late Monday morning. I hope that's not pushing it too far out, but so far the Bute, ice, and his pad have kept him pretty stable.

Bobby outwardly seems no worse for wear. He's so happy and in your face that it's made this decision hard, but at the same time I'm glad I get to let him go while he still thinks life is great and nothing matters more than where his next snuggle and snack comes from.