full story: Charlie's surgery + treatment

Charlie has been home for a few days now since having surgery, and is hopefully starting to settle and heal. For the purposes of documentation (and bc I know some of you are into this type of stuff) I'm outlining below exactly what was going on and how we have treated him.

walking under saddle to get the swelling down pre-surgery

The quick run down on back story is: Charlie has had multiple splint-like injuries over the past 12 months - all in the same place. The most recent aggravation was by far the worst, blossoming into cellulitis with the added bonus of the injury itself abscessing. A clear indication that the underlying fracture was not healing fully and would need greater medical intervention.

So Charlie was presented to New Bolton Center for x-ray evaluation and surgical removal of the distal splint bone fracture fragment on his right front leg.

New Bolton isn't the prettiest place - it's functional bordering on severe with lots of pavement and organized but unadorned hospital barns. these lovely wild flowers outside admissions were a nice softening touch tho

Upon presentation, they checked all his vitals (normal), his heart and his lungs (clear in all fields, hallelujah). They checked his guts, soundness, and digital pulses, plus did some pre-surgical blood work. All good. They also took note of his wrapped leg, with the puncture wound from lancing the abscess.

After Charlie was admitted, the good folks at New Bolton took new rads of his leg to confirm the fracture with callus formation and evidence of soft tissue damage. The following day, Charlie was anesthetized for surgical debridement of the wound and removal of the fracture fragment.

looking down a row of barns. i'd never been to an equine hospital before and wasn't sure what to expect. everything was laid out very clearly tho.

All affected tissue was removed from the site (including infection that had gotten up into the previously-healed bone), with a sample taken to submit for culture and sensitivity (the results of which will inform the antibiotic we use to treat Charlie).

The surgeon continued dissecting the area to isolate and remove 3cm of the splint bone. Afterward, they packed the site with an amikacin infused collagen sponge and closed the wound in two layers. The skin was closed using a combination of tension relieving sutures and simple continuous sutures.

charlie looking sweet and sad in his stall

They wrapped up the surgical incision with a sterile bandage and moved Charlie to recovery, upon which he woke up well and walked back to his stall for post-op care.

They changed the bandage the following morning to assess the incision, and all was well. He'll keep a bandage on the surgical site for the next 2 weeks, changing every 2-3 days or as needed if the bandage slips or gets wet or dirty.

i didn't get any pictures of charlie coming home bc.... he was a hot goddamn mess. full body lather, very upset, very unsettled. so i opted to just leave him alone in his stall without messing with him

Charlie will stay on stall rest only for 2 weeks, with carefully controlled hand grazing (NO purposeful hand walking!). Then in the next 2 weeks we can begin gradually increasing hand walking exercise and introducing turnout in a small paddock (recommended that Charlie be tranquilized for his first several times out).

If things are healing well and Charlie is comfortable and happy, he may begin returning to normal turnout and exercise over the next 3 weeks. This will be determined by consultation with our normal vet when she removes the sutures.

naturally tho that meant leaving him covered in all that sweat. which dried into a thick, nasty crust by the next day. luckily he was a little quieter so i could take him out to graze (in the much-needed rope halter) while brushing off all that crust

I'll probably have more pictures and more to write about the details of Charlie's care later, particularly as it relates to that bandage and wound care. There are like.... six different layers to this bandage and all the supplies for keeping it up over the next two weeks have absolutely overrun my tack locker. It's intense.

poor guy. he's really not the happiest camper right now but will hopefully continue to settle!

But it's all good stuff. All moving in the right direction. We will take Charlie's recovery slow to really give this thing the best shot at recovery. Ultimately Charlie's prognosis is good, with the expectation that he should be able to return to athletic soundness.

In the meantime, I'll keep you posted on his progress and will hopefully have other fun things to write about in the interim (like Velvet! or going to shows with my friends! and updates on 2ptober!!! don't forget to comment on your longest time this week!).

Happy Monday, y'all!