Well, the story's a bit complicated so I guess I'll just start from the beginning
A couple of years ago, Holly was out on 80 acres of pasture. One day when she was pulled in they noticed a hole on the side of her face, the right size for a bullet. Everyone, including the vet who we trust and has been seeing my aunt's horses for years, thought she had been shot. It was during deer season, so we believed it was a stray bullet, or she was mistaken for a deer.
The hole on the side of her face will drain with puss and other nasty stuff coming out of it every few weeks (aproximatley) and then heal, then drain, and so on for the past year. After I bought her in March, it started acting better.
We had her into the vet right after I bought her so he could check on her face. We then found out that she has bad teeth. No one had even thought of looking for signs in her mouth. The vet took X-rays and opened up her mouth and looked at it. We came to a conclusion that the bullet had gone into her mouth, nicked one of her pre-molars, and blew the other one out completley because one was missing some tooth, and the other completley gone. The vet got a little part of the tooth out, but didn't have the tools to pull it out.
So we had him mail the X-rays to K-State where we made an appointment for yesterday. We hauled for 2- 2 1/2 hours to get there. They looked her over, and then we had to wait. The head vet came and got us and we took her in to get 'drugged' so she could have her mouth flushed with water and looked at. They needed to take more X-rays, and we weren't allowed into the room where they did that. The vet came out at least 4 times to get more drugs for her, as she wasn't cooperating. He ended up using at least 3 bottles of the stuff. Finally after a long time, they brought her out and took her into another room where they put her into stocks so she'd stay put. There were around 5 people working on her, the vet, and intern, and the rest students. They tried for a long time trying to wiggle it loose, but the tooth was in pretty good. If it wouldn't come out, we would have to put her in surgery so they could punch it out from the top.
After 3 hours of tugging and prying, the whole tooth finally came out. The thing is about 2 walnuts put together, and because of the infection it stunk. They figured out that she really hadn't been shot, that she has bad teeth, and the infection in her mouth had to come out the side of her face because it had no where else to go.
Now she's on antibiotics and pain killers, and we have to feed her special food and flush her mouth with water for 2 weeks. For 24 hours after the 'opperation' she had the chance to collic, which is something fatel in horses. Thank goodness she didn't.
Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers as there is still a chance that she will have to have surgery, and another possible 2 surgeries after that.
I'm really sorry this is so long, but I really felt like telling you guys
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I have heard of collic before, in those Heartland books, otherwise I dont' know a bunch about horses.
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