The Iron Maiden

After surviving a horrible accident with a severe head injury that has left vets, equine consultants and horse friends amazed, Nancy is improving daily. I think it has been the power of prayer and good nursing. She was standing at the wall of our stone barn waiting to be brought in for feeding. Lucy, as is usual, came around the corner, spooked Nancy (which was odd as Nancy would usually simply move), Nancy spun, hit her head on the stone wall and was knocked out cold. She was out for an hour and a half. The vet came in about 20 minutes and she was still unconscious. He treated her with IV steroids and a sedative, stayed with us for about 45 minutes and she was still out when he left. She "paddled" while unconscious, and her near fore leg was stiff. She had "ragged" breathing, and at one point stopped breathing. I didn't know what to do so I kicked her in the area where her lungs are, and she started breathing again, may have been conincendential. Her gums became blue, her pupils were dialated. I placed hay bales around her to protect her if she regained consciousness. I made an agreement with the vet that if she had not regained herself by 6:00, I would call him to euthanize her. She awoke, thrashed about and somehow landed with her backside inside of the opening of the barn with her head facing out. She remained in a lying position and I could tell she was not completely responsive. I placed more hay bales around her, and in about 10-15 minutes, after trying three times, she got to her feet. She was very unsteady, so I quickly placed a halter on her with a lead rope and with little encouragement, she followed me outside. I took the halter off, and left her outside alone as by this time I had placed Lucy in her stall. I placed food and water near her, but she was so disoriented that she did not know what to do with them, she was still very unstable on her feet. By this time it was getting dark, and I left her. I checked on her every 3-4 hours during the night and she was till alive and walking, albeit very unsteadily. The next morning the vet came before I checked on her that morning and gave her another IV of banamine and I think steroids, he said she was in terrible pain. Her face looked like she had gone several rounds with Mike Tyson with a hematoma above her right eye, and she was covered in cuts and scapes all over her legs and side where she landed. I slipped a halter on her, by this time she had walked to the far side of the pasture and appeared disoriented. She seemed to have forgotten how to lead, but with gentle encouragement, she lead, but could not seem to rate herself and walked very fast. It took a lot of tugging on my part to slow her down enough to get her into her stall. By this time Lucy was suffering from cabin fever, so I turned her out. I placed water and food into Nancy's stall along with hay, and she spent the night in her stall. Two days prior to the incident I had noticed that her near hind pastern was swollen. She gets abscesses in her hooves easily so I thought that was the case this time and I had been cold hosing the site for the two days before she was knocked out.The next day, I placed Lucy back into her stall, and lead Nancy outside. She was trying to graze, but seemed to have forgotten how, and also could not sort out how to eat her feed. (due to her history of bolting her food, I had been soaking it for many years to prevent choking). She was drinking water just fine. During the time she was outside her swollen rear leg had broken open and to my chagrin she had very clearly been bitten by a venomous snake as the fang marks were clearly apparent. I had no idea until that point that she did not have an abscess. It drained copious amounts of infection. The vet placed her on antibiotics right away. I was giving her banamine IM every 5-6 hours to control her pain, so the antibiotic shot was another needle for her. She took the shots like a trooper. She was still not eating her grain, she wanted to, and she was also having trouble grazing. It was as though she had forgotten how. After five days of her not eating grain, she had started grazing by pullin gup grass by the roots as if she was not sure how to graze properly. At that point I decided to stop soaking her grain, and it worked, she could manage to eat it as is she were grazing, eating with rather a bobbing motion.I suspect that she had lost her depth perception. Over time she figured out how to eat, graze and her pain shots were gradually transitioned to oral butazoladine, 2 grams twice a day, a lot of bute. Over time that was decreased to a half a gram twice a day, but the snake wound was not healing. We subsequently treated her with another rouns of antibiotics. I asked the vet to culture the wound and sure enough, it was growing out an organism that was resistant to the antibiotics. We started her on the appropriate meds, she responded initially, but then she reinfected (all during this time I was cleaning the would and dressing it). I took her to the vet, and asked him to open the would so that it would drain more. He did and it blew out an enormous amount of infected material as well as fibrinogin, the clotting mechanism of the blood. It was almost impossible to drain the wound effectively. I took her home (by this time it was well into November), and started irrigating the wound that the vet had opened. I used hydrogen peroxide and cleaned it with water. The infection was not clearing still, so I asked the vet to give me a culture tube and I cultured it again the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and the results are STILL not back (inexcusable). I am continuing to irrigate the opening (the original wound is granulating) and now another site has opened to the bottom of the original wound, and still no culture results. I am irrigating the sites twice a day with a darge bore cannula, and 20 ml of peroxide and betadine. The leg is horribly swollen and she is finding it more and more difficult to walk. I now have her back on banamine 10 ml IM every morning and bute, one gram by mouth at night. I don't know if she will survive this especially without the proper antibiotics. I called the vet and he has talked with the lab (in Murfreesboro, TN) and is as confused and frustrated as I because he can't get an answer either. In the meantime, he wants to give her an IM shot of a very broad spectrum antibiotic that is only given every 4 days and hopefully by then the inept lab will have an answer (and hopefully it will be accurate). Lucy has been out with ther 24/7, Nancy's appetite has not slowed, but the is tired and is starting to loose weight. With winter coming, I don't know if she will survive, but I am marginally hopeful. She is truly the iron maiden.