Freaking Cajones

Sueño as you know is now a gelding. My vet warned me that if the wound closed too soon, I would have to squeeze the ball-less scrotum to open up the wound and get the fluid to flow out of the wound again.

Well, despite working him for 20 minutes the next day as instructed by my vet, and letting him be turned out with everyone for the entire day, the wound closed. You can do everything right, but there is often an outside force working against you; weather has been my downfall too many times this year.

My kingdom for some humidity please! Colorado is not known for being a humid climate, and we keep flip flopping between fall and winter.

His swelling was the size of a big cantaloupe from the fluid build up. I tried to exercise him to see if the swelling would go down, but that dang cantaloupe was banging all around like a piñata being hit by a pro baseball player. He couldn’t move forward well at all; it hurt getting smacked by that cantaloupe. Time to call the vet.

A plan was forged, and off to the vet I went to get a sedative. I didn’t mind what I needed to do; I’ve done much more challenging as a medic, but I was a bit concerned about getting kicked, I’ve been hit and bit, and kicked many times as a medic by people not happy that their highs were ruined or because they were angry at their situation. Getting kicked by a horse is a different story. It hurts a lot more, and a kick can easily break a bone.

******************Disclaimer******************

Do not do what I do without talking to your vet first. Your vet may want to do a different procedure or feel that something entirely different is going on. Always talk to your vet first. If you follow what I do, you are doing it at your own risk. Even with a sedative on board, you can get hurt. Let your vet help you.

When I got home, I quickly gave him the sedative, which he took easily. I kept him separated from everyone and waited for it to take effect. It seemed to take forever, and I swear that cantaloupe got a bit bigger since the morning. After thirty minutes, it was time.

I took a warm rag and wiped off all the dried blood. His legs flinched but remained down. I then pried the wound open with my finger, and this is when a flailing leg came at me. Luckily, it was weak from the sedative, and there was no kick in it. As I worked, I held the flailing leg with my other hand. I then grabbed the warm rag after making sure everything was cleaned out of that wound, and I began squeezing gently trying to get the fluids to flow. Once it began dripping, I left him alone to sober up. The next part was trotting him for 20 minutes.

However, the wind, the wind! The wind keeps tormenting me, and it was no different this day. A cold north wind began to blow, and it had a mission; close up the wound.

“Oh no you don’t Wind! I’m going to beat you this time!” Every 15 minutes, I’d squeeze again and wipe along the wound as he sobered up to keep it open.

When I realized we had about fifteen more minutes before he was sober enough to trot, I went in to get a quick bite to eat. When I returned, gosh dang it that wound closed up solid.

“Freaking Cajones!” I yell at the Wind.

Beyond frustrated and feeling like a big failure at something that should be simple, I convinced myself that his blood must be filled with a plethora of platelets.

I took him to the work area, and we began to longe. After 15 minutes, I knew longing wasn’t the answer. The wound and cantaloupe remained.

I decided to try something different. I got Dulce and Harley, and I round penned him for twenty minutes with the other two horses. This means that since it is such a big area, I chased them around the whole time keeping them moving at a good clip.

The great thing about this idea, even though I worried they would wreck or someone would clip someone else’s heel, was that they went at different speeds, they cut, and came to sudden stops; all creating the possibility of opening that wound. I drove and drove determined to get that wound open. Dulce wouldn’t let Sueño stop. Harley was baffled as to why he was included in all of this.

Finally, and this would normally be a gasping moment, his right hind leg slipped out sideways on a bit of mud, and that’s when it happened. His tail clamped down, swished hard, and clamped. I heard a big “Kasploosh” sound. The wound busted open. The cantaloupe busted out, and a huge amount of bloody, serous fluid burst all over both of his legs. If he weren’t a guy, I would have thought his water broke.

He was not happy about me jumping up and down in total glee. I yelled at the wind, “Ha! I beat you! Finally!”

I cleaned up his legs, and the cantaloupe was now one of those oversized tennis balls. The draining continued. I grabbed his light blanket, covered him up to create a wind block for his private area. We walked around, and I apologized to him for everything he was going through.

Harley stood in a corner continuing to be baffled as to why I would pull him into all of this. His nostrils were flared, breathing a little hard, he stared at me hard waiting for me to send him off in another direction. We did have an agreement that he was semi-retired and only needed to go on trail rides for now on.

“I apologized to you too. I needed your help the most. You move and it become a run. Thanks Harley.” I stroked his head letting him know it letting him know it was all over.

I kept Sueño out with the boys that night, and a steady drip could be seen the following morning thanks to Chaco chasing him around every now and then. The swelling was gone. Unfortunately, by the end of the day, it closed again. I called my vet to ask him for suggestions on how to keep it open. All that I could do is rub the inside of the wound with Vaseline, but then you run the chance of dirt getting in there and later causing an infection.

The next day he had an oversized tennis ball of fluid in there, but from here on out it has been easy to manage with exercise. Two hours after each exercise, the swelling is gone. He now only has a tiny bit of fluid/swelling each morning that disappears after his 20 minutes of exercise.

All of this exercise with Dulce and Sueño has confirmed some of my suspicions about Dulce that I will talk about in my next blog. Hopefully, the loss of Sueño’s cajones will lead to healing Dulce’s pain.