Alita's Story

Week Ten

August 4th-11th

Still Trying

    At the beginning of the week Alita's outer knee is almost totally healed. We are not putting anything directly on the wound so it will dry out. She seems to be doing OK and is using it somewhat even when she has no support at all. She is walking on her tippy toes on the bad leg. She supports weight but not much. It is progress and any progress is a good thing.

  We are concerned however as her leg is not straight at the point of the knee. The cartilage must have grown back as bone and fused her knee slightly so it won’t go totally straight. Alita tries to get it straight however it is still at a slight angle or bowed. Hopefully if she keeps trying she will stand on it better every week and maybe even get it straightened out a bit more. We still have a support wrap on her opposite leg to ease some of the stress.

  Mid week we had a prison/stall break! The mare Echo whom has been trying to break Alita out of her stall for the past several weeks finally succeeded. I think they have a conspiracy going. I went shopping and when I came home I noticed 3 faces in the hay bin eating hay along the driveway where there should have just been 2 faces! There’s Echo acting innocent as can be. "Raja" giving his normal Welcome Home whinny and then there was dear, sweet, innocent Alita. She just looked up as if to say "Hi mom!" and acted like it was normal for her to be there with the other two.

  It was time to feed so I just put the groceries in the house and headed out to get the feed ready after I crushed Alita’s Bute up in the syringe. As I walked out the horses all of them knew it was dinner time and went to their appropriate buckets and Alita to my surprise was putting more weight on her leg trying to get back to the stall a few feet away. She seemed to have to swing her body slightly to get her leg in front of her but she was trying. Then the last 3 steps to the stall she walked a bit faster and a little better.

  The leg is still bent at her knee but she is trying to figure out how to use it. She did need to sort of swing her leg to position it in front of her to take a step. My husband watched her and felt that maybe her muscles in her shoulder had started to atrophy due to not being used that much for nine weeks. I agreed as she is trying to use her leg but can’t seem to lift it and bring it in front if her.

  I called the vet the next morning and he thought the same thing. I asked if I could extend her area to encourage her to walk on it to strengthen it however he feels she may hurt herself. He thinks she may get excited and try to run and make things worse. Not even a 20X20 area he told me. I have left her in her 4x10 outside her stall as she is doing well with that size space. Still allows her to have her hay in the sun.

  Alita is only laying down about 30% of the time this week. She lays down after breakfast, late afternoon and for longer periods thru the night. Echo and Raja still stand outside next to her stall in the "guard" position and watch over her until she is back up. Hopefully, I will be able to let her out with them once this is all over and there won’t be a wall between them.

  This week we have chosen to leave the soft brace off and let her start to really use her leg. She seems to be doing a little better. She still has her good and bad days however there have been more good lately than bad.

  Her hoof is getting very long on the leg she is not using. I am going to call our farrier to see if he will come out just to do her in her stall. I’m not even quite sure how we can do it. She is still to painful to bend at her knee and she can’t fully extend it either. It is going to take a lot of patience on both the farriers part as well as Alita’s. I am calling the vet at the beginning of the week to ensure we can do her hoof. We just feel that with her toe so long she isn’t going to be very comfortable using the leg anyway. Not to mention she isn’t stepping right on it due to the toe length.

  We have taken Alita down to 3/4 of a Bute 2x a day. She is doing pretty well at trying to use her leg and not avoiding it. She is still trying to swing it in front of her but she is also occasionally picking it up slightly and setting it back down. We still have her on joint supplements and her beet pulp. She also still gets checked several times a day, hugged, kissed good night and told that she is doing great and to keep it up. Not just for me but for that baby of hers as well. I have asked Diana to check in with Alita’s and see how she is doing. She will let me know in the next day or two.

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