Hanging in there

Riv's doing pretty well.  He gave me a good scare on Friday..  He wasn't pooping much, because he wasn't eating much because he didn't eat his bute so he was hurting and miserable.  Friday night I syringed him a healthy dose of bute, and Saturday morning he was eating and pooping!

I had ordered more of his antibiotic on Wednesday before I picked him up.  Thursday at like 6PM the order was showing up as "unacknowledged".  I called the compounding pharmacy and they said there was a problem with the order, so I put the doctor (my dad) on the phone to sort it out.  Apparently the problem is that they have a product on the website they can't actually make *rolls eyes*.  Okay fine, got the order fixed, it'll be here Saturday.  Except I had enough from Cornell for 2 doses Friday, which meant he'd miss two doses.  I called a local compounding pharmacy to see if they could make some, but no.  So then I'm like great, I'm going to have to call the Cornell pharmacy in the morning to see if they can get a couple tubes for me and I'll have to drive up after work to pick them up.

Insert my awesome vet!  She called to check on River and I mentioned the chloramphenicol shortage and how I wasn't looking forward to going up to Cornell again.  She was like, hang on, I think I have some, let me pull over somewhere so I can look in my truck... sure enough, she had a couple bottles of 500mg pills!  So instead of driving to Cornell on Friday, I just drove to her house to pick them up.  Yay!!!  Of course, giving a horse 48 disgusting pills is a pretty unpleasant task, but we got it done...  I would put maybe 8 or 10 pills in a 60cc syringe with the end cut off so it was totally open, add some molasses, shove my arm in his mouth, press the plunger, hold his head up, pick up whatever pills he managed to spit out, and repeat.  But still, better than a 7 hour round trip to Cornell for two tubes of chloramphenicol.

Mother Nature.  WTF.  Saturday I got home around 8PM and it was raining/sleeting.  I meant to go out to the barn around 11PM to give Riv his meds, but I fell asleep and woke up around 2AM.  Go outside... there's 6-8 inches of wet, heavy snow on the ground.  No way in the world is my car going to be able to move, so I borrow the old SUV to drive to the barn on completely unplowed roads.... thank goodness for four wheel drive.

For now I'm basically doing self care... since I'm at the barn three times a day, I'm doing his stall cleaning and all his feeding.  It's much easier to keep an eye on how much he's eating, drinking, pooping, and peeing if I'm doing all his care.

His poop has been getting progressively softer; today we reached pudding consistency.  Which is kind of nice for stall cleaning, since it lands in a cohesive blob and then sets up firm enough to be easily picked out with the pitchfork.  Probably going to start him on a probiotic.

Oh, going back in time a bit... when he got to Cornell, he weighed in at 1160 pounds.  What???  I would have guessed him more like 1250!!  I don't know what he weighs now, but I'm sure he's lost a bit because he's not eating as much.

I tried to get a cute picture of him this morning to post, but he wasn't cooperating: