Alita's Story

Day Five

June 7th

The Voyage Home

   I borrowed a friends trailer and headed to the vet in the early afternoon. My husband was at home removing the fence so we could back Alita all the way up to the stall so she wouldn’t have to go but a few steps to her new home.

  At the vet I picked up the supplies and drugs along with the directions for using them. One of the tech’s showed me how I needed to wrap her leg. The med’s were 30 SMZ tablets a day for 10 days. 15 tablets in the AM and 15 in the PM. She was also on 3 Bute a day. 1&1/2 morning and 1&1/2 @ night. We just bought the large bottles of each to save money. I was told she needed to come back in 2 weeks for x-rays.

  Alita hobbled to the trailer and loaded like a trooper. She was a little anxious so I loaded her bag of feed and pulled away. The road to our house is a bit windy so we drove VERY slowly. Each turn was taken ever so gently to avoid any extra stress on Alita or her knee.

  When we arrived home the other horses whinnied to her and she perked right up. One of the horses was an old pasture buddy of hers that had come back to the house recently to nanny one of our foals. We tied up the other horses and then backed all the way up to the stall. It was a tight fit and it took us awhile to get there however when we finished we were only about 5 feet from the stall door.

  Alita almost jumped out of the trailer forgetting about her leg. I pulled her back and she took a small leap instead of what she was preparing to do. I walked her slowly into the stall and let her get used to her new surroundings. She seemed to be very happy to be home.

  That night I stayed with her for bit while she ate her dinner and munched on some hay. I then went into the house and called a local college that specializes in Equines and is recognized all over the country. I asked to speak to a vet I had met that treated another one of our horses previously. She put me in touch with a joint specialist so I could tell her what had happened and get a second opinion.

  After explaining the situation and telling her the current course of treatment she told me to change her SMZ tablets to a drug called Batrol.  SMZ is wimpy compared to this drug however it has to be given by IV and I was not THAT comfortable with IV shots @ the time. Always made me nervous even with 12 horses. She told me what dosage to request from our vet and get her on it ASAP. She also told me that it was of vital importance that her wound stay sterile since it was in the joint.

  It was hard to sleep that night as I waited to call the vet in the morning and get her on the better coverage antibiotic.

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