like a shot in the arm

Or like a nail in the hoof?? Idk... I think I'm getting my metaphors confused and mixed up....

Charlie and I had a great lesson yesterday. I'll probably write more about it soon (it's worth documenting) but it ended abruptly with the world's most unlucky hoof fall. Charlie somehow found a 4" nail with his RH. The nail is likely an artifact of all the construction that's been going on with our indoor over the past month or two.

houston, we have a problem.

In fact, as best I can tell, based on the location where he picked it up (bc, uh, yea he was instantly crippled even tho I wasn't able to pull him up for a few more strides.....) the nail has probably been lying in wait for a while.

Why Charlie, of all horses, had to be the one to find it is beyond me.

fucking christ

Actually we couldn't even figure out what was up at first - he was just suddenly very, very lame. Once I got him stopped it seemed like he was maybe kicking at his belly. I wondered if he was cramping up or colicking maybe?? Trainer K thought maybe his stifle locked, and he was extremely reactive to any touching or prodding.

It didn't take long, tho, to find the source of Charlie's extreme angst: a giant goddamn nail embedded in his hoof. Actually, it took way longer to even get the thing out of there (no way in hell was I gonna wait to pull it so we could x-ray. the last thing I wanted was the nail going any deeper if Charlie stepped hard on it.).

the foam is hydrogen peroxide. the dark brown stuff is blood.

About an inch of nail was embedded in the hoof, and it spurted blood immediately upon us finally getting it out of the hoof (which... again... took a while even with tools. Charlie was.... very unhappy throughout this process).

The blood is a good sign. Another good sign? The nail appears to have been angled underneath the shoe in the direction of Charlie's hoof wall. As opposed to... say.... his coffin joint. Or navicular bursa. Or the deep digital flexor tendon.

Fuck it, take your pick. There are literally so many really fragile, delicate, but oh-so-important structures inside the hoof.

see? blood. ugh...

A third good sign? Once we got the nail out, Charlie was instantly more comfortable. Clearly sore, but no longer three-legged lame. He was weight bearing and easily walked out of the indoor into the attached barn aisle for us to flush it out and get a temporary wrap on it for the long walk down the driveway to our own lower barn. 

I also used this time to call the vet, who will be looking at the horse at some point today. She determined it did not merit an emergency visit since, without the nail still being in the hoof, she couldn't x-ray to see where it went anyway. And with Charlie walking ok, we had every indication that the nail somehow did not injure any of those critical structures inside the hoof.

Obvi, fingers crossed there. We'll know more after the vet looks at him today, and gauges his degree of lameness etc. 

only a fraction of the supplies...

So.... Initial consensus is that we dodged a bullet. That perhaps, this is the best case scenario of giant-fucking-nail-in-hoof that you can have. That maybe, somehow, we got lucky. The thing is, tho... The thing is, I really don't feel lucky. If anything, I feel the opposite of lucky.

flying pig duct tape. bc pigs will fly when charlie can go longer than six weeks without some horrifying injury.

But Charlie needed my attention, so Emma's pity party #1879 had to be put on temporary hold.

Instructions for once we got back down to his barn were:
- Scrub as much mud off the hoof as possible (I rinsed in a bucket of cold water and scrubbed with a stiff brush)
- Epsom soak with hot water for ~10min
- Flush with betadine using a syringe (note to self: buy one of those long curved tip syringes)
- Pack with poultice or magic cushion. I used poultice since that's what I have.
- Wrap hoof. I did a gauze pad first to hold in the poultice, then vet wrap, then a piece of feed bag to keep his toe from wearing through, then duct tape. (note to self: buy more duct tape)
- Give that pony some bute.

i still love him tho :(

And now we wait. To hear from the vet. To see if Charlie spikes a giant fever or goes very lame. Or if the thing will abscess. It's hard to tell whether he'll need stall rest or for how long, since the ground is so wet and muddy right now. 

But for now, I'm tamping down the urge to panic with the idea that.... Charlie's probably going to be fine. The puncture's location seems promising, as does his level of comfort on the foot. 

Dammit, tho. Just... Dammit.