Cellulitis

On Wednesday afternoon I took Gentry out for a little stroll around the paddock. He slipped in the mud a little and "caught his toe" on the injured leg. This could mean he just slipped, or the tendon is not healing as well as we all thought. Regardless...it's kind of unrelated to the matter at hand, but it does mean no hand walking for now period. And potentially even more stall rest. Time will only tell on that.

Thursday morning I went to feed the horses I asked Gentry to step aside in the stall while I mucked. I  noticed that he was a bit reluctant to move his injured leg when I asked, but thought perhaps it was just related to tripping in the mud the afternoon before. Things drastically changed however by lunchtime.

I put Junior down for his crib confined non-sleeping singing and talking to himself time nap and went to feed the horses lunch a per usual. I instantly noticed Gentry's hock was swollen and that he was not baring weight on the injured leg. Quickly I removed the bandage to see what was amiss. It was rather difficult to do this because he was extremely sensitive to his leg being touched. It was hot and swollen. When I removed the Telfa pad, opaque yellow fluid immediately spilled out of the wound, followed by blood. The entire leg was swollen with pitting edema.

Cannon Bone Wound and Cellulitis - Day 24

My assumption was that he had cellulitis, and a possibly infected wound. Damn.

I called the vet and they managed to get out to the farm a couple hours later. My evaluation was correct, and he also had a slightly raised temp but not technically a fever. It is assumed that the cellulitis was caused by bacteria in the wound, although it actually doesn't seem infected according to the vet. So, it could be cause by a freak accident, like him getting cast in his stall. Most likely though it is related to the wound.

The prescription is continued stall rest, daily bandage changes with ointment (why did we stop this, now I'm confused?), 17 SMZ's 2x a day, and 2gm Bute 1x a day through Monday. We will re-evaluate then where he is at, unless of course things go massively downhill before then. However, Friday morning when I changed Gentry's bandage, he was barring weight on his leg again, let me touch it and dress the wound like usual, and it seemed that some of the swelling in his hock had gone down. Hopefully this will be the worst of it and the cellulitis will go away quickly and we will be back onto a positive healing path.

Happy trails and swooshing tails!
•Renee•