I had this great pair of olive green fleece pants I used to wear camping on Memorial Day weekend when it hadn't warmed up quite yet. This past weekend, I would have loved to have had those pants again. And in the last month, I have been hoarding new winter clothes, adding consistently to my collection in my fight to stay warm not only outside, but within my office as well.
My boyfriend called me at the crack of dawn (well, for him anyway) on Saturday, complaining he was hungry and he wanted to go out for breakfast. Lucky for him, I had woken up about 10 minutes before my phone rang, and although I was enjoying the warmth of my 5 blankets (yes, you read that right...I have no heat in my bedroom, and it has no insulation because it used to be the garage.) - I was contemplating getting up anyway. I told him to give me an hour and a half or so. Isn't it amazing I can get ready in 30 minutes? Including blow drying my hair so that I didn't freeze to death? I think so, lol. The other hour was the commute. (I cannot stress enough that I can't wait until we can move in together. Fingers crossed that he finds work soon!)
We went to IHOP. Then back to his place to curl up under a blanket and watch the rest of Battlestar Galactica. I kept telling myself, go see Promise and hang out for a while. And I'd move, and remember how cold it was, and change my mind. We put Burn After Reading in. (I don't recommend it, it wasn't that good.) And by the time that was over, I definitely didn't feel like going to the barn.
Yesterday, I stopped there for a bit on my way to his house. Still no new cuts or bruises. I am mad at myself for not realizing last weekend that her right front was developing some proud flesh. Wonderful. It seems like this particular leg is more prone to it than the others - the only other episode I had with it, left a scar just above the current cut.
Sigh. Well, too late to prevent it, so can only treat it.
I picked the scab off, which she just absolutely loved. I guess it's still sore. I discovered that the barn has luke warm water if you let it run long enough. That was the best I could do...no place to get hot water at that moment in time, so I made do. With the scab off, it started bleeding, which is good. I diluted some surgical scrub in the water and alternated scrubbing it and spraying peroxide on it. It fizzed for quite some time - like, she actually stopped fidgeting and had reserved herself to just dealing with it by the time it stopped fizzing. I think I probably did that for a good 10, if not 15 minutes before I was satisfied. I wiped the remaining peroxide off her leg, dried it a bit and then put wonder dust on it (the cure all for proud flesh in my experiences). Then I wrapped it in vet wrap so I wouldn't have to clean it again while we went to the arena to play.
She was pretty quiet on the lunge line - and a bit gimpy to start. She did work out of it really nicely, and I think the less deep footing helped quite a bit with that. I had her do walk-trot-canter for about 10 minutes in each direction. She was so quiet, almost bored. Since no one was there other than a lesson out on the trails, I let her off the line to play for a few minutes, hoping she'd get some bucks in and play a bit. Boy did she, lol, She went around a couple times at a pretty good clip - still listened to my voice commands and did a few transitions for me, and then I just let her be. She stayed in a perfect circle around me - and at the top of the arena, started bucking and hopping around. Pretty funny. Then she pranced off out of the arena area and was bugging the horses in the lower pasture, adjacent - so I had to go herd her back to the arena. By that point, the lesson was coming back, so I had to catch her so she didn't do anything stupid and spook the pony. The vet wrap stayed intact during all of this, so I left it on, figuring it will keep the area clean for another day or two.
I was taught to use hot water and surgical scrub to scrub at proud flesh until it bleeds freely, then clean it up and put wonder dust on it. The wonder dust acts as a coagulant (word?) and basically causes the flesh to dry up and heal properly. So, my plan on Saturday is to get to my boyfriend's house early, boil some water, put it in a thermos and then head to the barn. By the time I get there and get it set up in a bucket, it should be the perfect temperature to really scrub at the proud flesh. I decided on this because I am concerned that with an hour drive, even in a thermos, the water will not be quite hot enough by the time I get to the barn.
That reminds me...I need to find my natural, sterile sponge that I use specifically for wounds like this. I think it's under the kitchen sink in a zippy bag...it needs to be boiled prior to Saturday, just as a precaution. I also need to get more gauze and/or gauze pads. I just about used the last of it, because I couldn't find a sponge that I hadn't previously used for baths.
No comments:
Post a Comment