Laying low

After last weeks' tumultuous happenings and raw emotions, lack of sleep and just trying to keep up with everything - we were both just exhausted.  Physically, but even more so emotionally.  We stayed home all weekend and just laid low.  We made a very short trip to the grocery store, ducked in and right back home we went.  We took care of the horses, gave Charlotte a (much-needed) bath, did some house cleaning and cooking, but did absolutely nothing else. It felt good to keep busy with mundane tasks and cozy up at home.  It rained pretty much most of the weekend.  It rained a lot.  So hard to imagine less than a month ago, we were aching for moisture...be careful what you ask for.

Ladde is improving some.  I'm so hopeful that his seizures were just a blip on the radar.  To our knowledge, he hasn't had any since last Wednesday.  The pain in his feet continues to lessen.  He's down to a 500# dose of banamine twice daily, and this week we're hoping that drops to once a day.  I'm waiting for Troy to come out and trim his feet, and hopefully confirm the abscesses are finally all cleared up.  We're fairly confident that he's steady and sound enough to bear his weight for trimming. I think we're getting the inflammation from the founder under control as well.  He walks right out with no pads on his feet, but is still a bit careful and slow about making tight turns.  I've reduced his pergolide to 1 mg daily, which is a 50% reduction.  I've learned that too much pergolide causes incoordination, which we've definitely been seeing, so made that decision and so far, so good. There's so much trial and error in this rehabilitation phase that, that in itself is nerve-wracking.  Ahh, the "practice" of medicine...

We even allowed him out in the big pasture with the whole herd for a couple hours yesterday.  Wow, did that ever make our boy happy!!  That single thing improved his outlook on life by a 100%.  And that makes us happy.  The grass is growing quickly right now, so a couple hours was all we could risk.  For this coming week, it's back to stalled at night and daytime turn-out in the corral with a single buddy.  We've decided to hold off on starting him on phenobarbital.  It may just be wishful thinking that the seizures won't return, but I'm willing to push this just a bit on faith alone.  A single loading dose would be 75 tablets given orally, however we could achieve that.  The injectable proved to be cost prohibitive at about $2500.00 for a single dose.  Yes, you read that correctly - $25 hundred dollars!!  And that's at cost...ridiculous!!

Here's a stock tip for ya'all...invest in pharmaceuticals.  Just sayin'.

So for now, we'll just keep taking everything as it comes...one day at a time.  Wishing and hoping and praying that our boy continues on this path to improvement.

I appreciate all the kind words of encouragement, and especially the prayers.  Thanks so much!!