And more disgusting photos

When I got to the barn this morning, this is what Ruby's chest looked like.

Clearly infected...look at the whole left side of this photo.  The wound was almost swollen closed, skin around the wound was tight and hot, huge areas around it were swollen, and I was in freak-out mode.

The vet had a medical appointment of his own this morning, so I waited until 11:30 or so to call him.  I knew he had a gelding appointment before he was heading over, but I wanted to find out about when he would be at the barn.  When he asked me how Ruby was, I said 'so much worse.'  She lost a little of the brightness in her eyes, and even though she ate her breakfast, it was without as much gusto as normal.  WORRIED.

I doctored her as I have the last few days, syringed her some applesauce-bute, antibiotics plus molasses in her breakfast, ran water over the wound for several minutes (gooey yellow nastiness flowed out), squirted in Synbiont, painted Swat all around.  Ruby was in definite pain - she kept trying to move away from the hose when she hasn't minded previously, fought the syringe of apple-sauced bute rather feebly, and just seemed indifferent about everything else.  It was a loooong morning.

The vet finally made it out in the afternoon.  I told him she was in more pain that she was previously so he sedated her.

Sedated face

The vet put on his gloves, walked to Ruby's right side, and started manipulating the wound looking for foreign objects - still nothing.  He was able to stick his finger in up to the knuckle and gobs of nastiness drained out.  He gave her a huge shot of antibiotics (split between two places on her neck) and told me that if she doesn't get better by Monday, he's going to refer me to a surgery center.  He wants updates every day on how she's doing and he will be back out on Monday to give her another shot of antibiotics.  I'm not going to show you an after-picture of the wound because, well, I don't want to do that to you.  The swelling in the bottom of her chest went down a bit from the morning, and is jelly-like in texture so he didn't put in a drain.  He said it's normal and that she will reabsorb it so I'll trust him in this.  He gave me another large syringe to fill with Synbiont and squirt the entire tube into the wound twice a day.  He went ahead and dosed her with the Synbiont before he left.

Still sleepy but coming around.

I hung out with her while she slowly woke up.   When she was moving around normally, I gave her her evening dose of her oral antibiotics, then another syringe-full of Synbiont into the wound.  Hoping that she's noticeably better tomorrow.