Today marks the beginning of week 4 of Jacks recovery.
3 more weeks of box rest to go, it feels good to know we are more than half way there!
His injuries are all continuing to heal well and are looking much smaller and neater now. I'm also please that despite being in areas prone to proud flesh there is no sign of any yet so the vulcatan cream the vet prescribed to keep it at bay seems to have done the trick.
On Friday we began a little bit of in hand walk exercise and although it was a bit trial and error with the dose of sedalin required we both survived the experience unscathed! To say it was Jacks first time out of the box in nearly 4 weeks he actually coped and behaved really well, although he still felt like he could explode at any second so I definitely wouldn't like to attempt it without the sedalin at the moment!
As it was his first time out we only did 3 laps of the yard/car park not wanting to over do anything or push our luck! Bless his everytime we walked past the gate to the fields he was pushing me towards it trying to persuade me to let him out!
Unfortunately the weather when I reached the yard on Saturday was awful with howling wind and horizontal rain so I made the decision it wasn't really worth risking taking him out in that, especially as there was no one else about, so he stayed in his box that day.
To be fair the weather wasn't much better on Sunday afternoon but I didn't want to use the weather as an excuse so I put his turn out on and dosed him up with sedalin again while I set about cleaning up his stable until the drugs kicked in. As I was doing this the other liveries all arrived to bring their horses in and I hoped this might help him keep calm! After 30minutes he didn't seem any less alert so I decided to top him up as I had not given him the max dose. He still didn't seem any less lively but I needed to get back so I grabbed my hat, gloves, lunge line and bridle and off we went in a brief lull in the weather. He was a good boy and although pulling and keen to go he did walk with me and seemed slightly less like he was on the edge so this time we increased to 4 laps and can hopefully continue to build the distance and frequency up a little each time over the next few weeks.
Onto today and due to finding the vet had missed one of the stitches in his hind leg we had to have the vet out for an unplanned 4th visit this morning. It was a different vet (from the same practice) but as he was already booked to come to do some vaccinations and it only needed a couple of stitches removing it seemed silly not to get it done while he was there. Jack was grumpy and irritable (I do hope that goes away once he's turned out!) but allowed the vet to remove the stitches from his hind leg without any sedation, I just had to hold up a front leg so he didn't move to much or kick! I had hoped he would be sedated so I could walk him while he was still knocked out from that but he behaved too well and didn't need it so it will have to be a dose of sedalin again later! The vet did leave me some more tubes to keep us going for a bit and he was hopeful that we might be able to do without it after a week or so once he is able to have a few walks a day and gets used to it (I'm not so optimistic!)
So now hopefully that is it for vet visits until the 23rd March when we return to Oakham vet hospital for xrays.
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