114 EqUUS 498 AUTUMN 2019
None of our horses have ever lived in-
side, so before the surgery we’d tried
to get her used to being in the calving
barn but she didn’t like it.
Now, even with Ed for company,
Breezy still fussed at being in the
barn. We quickly realized she’d be
happier out in her pen. We put a blanket
on her and led her outside after admin-
istering the first dose of oral antibiotic
the veterinarian had sent home with
us. After the sun went down, I put
her in the calving pen by the house,
under the yard light, so I could check
on her from the house window. She
didn’t lie down until the wee hours of
the morning.
After sunrise, I moved Breezy back
to her own pen and took off her
blanket. It was no longer snowing
and she had a naturally thick, heavycoat. We then started what would
become a regular routine of oral anti-
biotics several times a day and injec-
tions of Banamine twice a day to
control the pain. We were to continue
both of those medications for a week.
Andrea helped me change Breezy’s
bandage daily, replacing the padded
fly mask each time for extra protection
from the cold.
Breezy was miserable for the first
few days. I’m sure she was uncomfort-
able from the surgery, and the cold
weather didn’t help; night temperatures
were dropping toward zero. She
wasn’t eating much and seemed list-
less. The eye itself appeared to be
healing, though; by the third day the tis-
sue around the sutured area was a little
less swollen and by the fourth there
wasn’t much oozing. At the endof the week, Breezy perked up and
started to eat.
We had a setback about 10 days
after surgery. Breezy’s neck muscles
had become sore from all the injections
and she didn’t want to put her head
down to eat or drink. The solution was
to put her hay in a big tub on top of a
tire and put her water tub on blocks of
wood, so she didn’t have to lower her
head so far. This helped her to eat and
drink but I worried that she might be
developing an abscess. I consulted with
Riggleman and she advised massaging
the swollen neck muscles and apply-
ing warm compresses, and checking
Breezy’s temperature twice a day. Any
increase could indicate an infection, but
thankfully that never happened.
Breezy also had mild abdominal
pain for several days and was a little