Busy, busy, busy, busy...no stitching :-(

It's audit time!!! Work is insane as we gear up for our surveillance audit. Next week, we will entertain 2 auditors who will come *seeking compliance* for our quality management and environmental systems. Good times...stressful...insanely busy times and it'll be 12 hour days all next week.
Suffice it to say, I haven't picked up a needle in the last week or so. I felt a slump coming on and yep, I was right. Slumpy. It'll pass. It always does, so I'll just wait it through. I find that after a slumpy time, I get really focused and I accomplish a lot. I am almost done with Their Song, only a large crow and a pine tree to go. I enjoyed stitching this piece and I'll be sad to be done with it.

I had a scare with my woobie, Joey.

On Sunday, he came in from the pen a tad gimpy. We didn't think anything of it, the pen is boggy and rough. By Monday, Mr. Horse was leaning against his stall wall and hadn't, umm-mm, pee'd all night. When we tried to ask him take a step, he clearly didn't want to and he looked as though he couldn't support his weight on his back legs. When he did take a step (and it was only 1) he swayed back and forth like he was going to fall over. Ok, now we are getting a little concerned, or I should say, I was getting concerned. The DH was maddenly unconcerned. So I put a call into the vet and asked if she could come for a visit. She clearly was unhappy because I basically asked her to re-arrange her schedule to come to the house in the late afternoon on Tuesday, but she agreed. Later that evening, we went back outside to check on him and he was standing in the same spot, no wet spot, but he obviously was not in distress and he was eating and drinking a little bit.

Tuesday morning, he wasn't any better. No wet spot. He was still eating, not drinking though. He wasn't depressed. But I was scared cause I immediately thought KIDNEY FAILURE or KIDNEY STONE. The boy is getting up in years, he's 21 and these health issues can come up quickly. Since the DH was still maddeningly unconcerned, I waited until he went to work and I called the vet to see if she could come earlier. She agreed to come at 11:30.

I booked home and the vet arrived. She looked at Joey and asked me to see if he would walk a few steps for her. Clearly he was not thrilled. She took his heartrate, elevated but not alarmingly so. When he took his first step, he almost went to his knees. So the vet started to examine him. When she got down to examining his legs, his right foreleg was somewhat swollen and there was heat in his hoof. Eureka! She immediately said that she felt he had an abscess in his hoof. I noticed the swollen fetlock but chocked it up to him standing in one spot and he just stocked up with fluid.

The vet found a hairline crack in his hoof and she began to pare away his hoof looking for the abscess. And she hit paydirt. Once she relieved the pressure and cleaned out the pus, my boy was very happy.

Because he is such a big baby, he would not put his weight on his front feet and stretch out to pee cause he had an "ow-wie" in his hoof. That's why he didn't have any wet spots in his stall. He wouldn't go because his hoof hurt him.

We returned him to his stall, where he pee'd himself a river, drank an entire bucket of water and returned to his happy self.

And me? I am a horse nurse now..but also relieved that it was a relatively minor issue.