Friday ends a long week

Friday ends a long week of bad news.

Our dear old Simon, one of the three Arabians we helped to rescue a little while back......has been diagnosed with cancer. I think we told you that he had penis lacerations. The lacerations were not really lacerations, but rather ulcerations from squamous cell (cancer). This is a very aggressive cancer. Treatment options are to amputate his penis or to keep cutting away flesh and trying to medicate locally, but we don't consider those things to be viable options for this old man. Trying to medicate locally has been the course of the last month and a half....and he must be sedated to to do this........we simply cannot sedate the old guy every day and besides it has not worked well........he has more exposed and ulcerated flesh....very painful too......He has had a really good last couple of months.......has been doted on, loved, fed, bathed and got to hang out with other old man horses. We will give him a dignified ending in the next week or so.

I took Hammy into the vet today as well so that I could get an answer on his weight loss and loss of appetite. I expected bad teeth........but bad teeth are not the answer. It seems that Hammy probably sustained a broken jaw at one point prior to coming into Pony Up. His teeth do not line up (open your own mouth and purposefully move your jaw to the left or right as far as you can)....this is what Hammy's jaw is like. It makes it very difficult to chew, impossible to clip grass and has also given him a sort of TMJ scenario. Add chronic wind sucking to put pressure on his jaw........and you get a lot of pain. He now has a very swollen mandibular joint. He also has blood in his stool, indicating a distant bowel disturbance/bleeding. The doctor ran some blood work so that we may check blood chemistry, liver and kidney function. This will give us more answers. For right now we got some pain medication for him, to ease his jaw pain and perhaps allow him to eat more easily. I made him a dinner of soaked alfalfa pellets, senior grain, corn oil, wheat germ oil, Gleam and Gain, probiotic and some molasses. He was eating pretty good when I left the farm. There is really no cure for the jaw.........perhaps a joint injection, but his jaw will never line up properly. I shudder to think about people putting a bit in his mouth.......it must have been very, very painful. The joint injections are somewhat expensive but should probably give some relief with the pain.

Tomorrow we have riding to do and general cleaning (paddocks, water troughs, horse manicures, lawn mowing) I will try to get pictures of some of our antics.........like sweat soaked tee shirts, dirty faces and grubby hands. I have not posted pictures for a while. ..I always like to because it keeps us close to you.

Thanks to everyone who helps us out........we could not do it without you.