Hi, my name is Calvin and I like to hurt myself!

Calvin is pretty notorious for showing up with random scrapes on his body ever since I got him. I'd find random scrape marks on his head and wonder how he even got those in the first place since his pasture didn't have anything sharp. I chalked it up to him being dumb young and feeling the need to test his boundaries.

Yesterday I planned for a nice relaxing day (first mistake). I head out to the barn and it's already 88ºF at 10am, no problem though because I'll just brush him and maybe bareback on the property. I go to get him out of his stall and notice an inordinate amount of flies around his face. That's weird, I know it's fly season but this is kind of excessive. Oh I see, he scraped his neck! Ouch, that's kind of a deep scratch but will likely heal fine. Then I go to put on his halter and see it...

**Before I continue I'm giving a WARNING to anyone who is squeamish or doesn't like to see blood and gore. Please DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS TO THE PICTURES IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH GORE OR SEEING HORSE INJURIES. If you just want the text story and don't mind gory details then it's safe to keep reading, but if you don't even want to read about gore then I suggest stopping here.

Calvin managed to slice his chin open on both sides of his face. This didn't look like an ordinary scrape, oh no, it was an inch deep and I could see some lovely proud flesh. Well, now I have to call the vet! It's Sat though, so regular vets are closed and I'm trying to find an emergency on-call vet to come out and see him. Luckily I got ahold of one who was able to make it out fairly quickly. In the meantime, I rinsed his face and tried to find where on earth he would slice his face open. If you're wondering how he sliced both sides of his chin, it's because he's a horse.

L side initial injury after rinse            R Side after rinse           After vet prepped the area

The vet comes out to examine the wounds and says they are a bit older than she would like, probably 12-24 hours old. I hadn't been out since Monday due to starting school this week so I just saw this injury today. She was also able to identify where he hurt himself: on a piece of sheet metal in his stall. I feel bad that I didn't even notice this glaringly sharp object near his stall and mention it to the boarding lady. The boarding people felt awful and rightfully so. The main horse caretaker (the mother) was actually hospitalized last week for pneumonia deep in her lungs and is still in the hospital so the daughter and husband have been watching the horses. The daughter broke up with her fiance and just moved back in with her parents. The point is that the person who mainly cares for the horses was hospitalized and therefore the dad with MS was doing the horse feed and the daughter would only watch them sporadically. The daughter didn't know that her dad wasn't letting Calvin out to roam on the acre. I then made it very clear that he needs to roam and have "turnout time" because he's such a playful boy that when he's bored and confined, he'll get into trouble. Needless to say, they're turning him out more now.

See in the center how the wood has been chewed down and there's just enough room for a curious horse to stick his head through? That sheet metal siding is very sharp, poor Calvy! This area is now covered. 

The good news is that this injury was actually not that bad. The vet said that the lacerations were straight, which apparently is rare with horses and normally when they get lacerations it's in an L shape, making it more difficult to stitch up. Calvin was sedated with a "medium" dosage during this time, but he still had a bit of fight in him so the vet ended up having to give him more sedation. He doesn't like shots (who does?), so he'll shake his head when she goes to put the needle in, hence why he needed more sedation. This isn't the worst behavior (like say, a horse throwing their head up and running backwards), but it's the smart and annoying way to avoid shots. Finally she managed to get the needle in and drug him up. As the drugs were kicking in, I noticed he was stumbling and asked if he would fall down. The vet said that sedated horses do a good job of standing up and she's never had one lie down on her. Well, Calvin decided to break that trend and take a nap. He then very gently decides to lay down and let out a deep groan. We both stood there in shock for a few seconds before the vet exclaimed, "In the 4 years I've been doing this I've never had one lie down...until now" haha.

Oh and now it's about 105º at 12:30pm and I'm sweating profusely and haven't been drinking enough water. Not only that, but we're having to stand in the sun because Calvin decided he didn't want to stand in the shade. All of the sudden I start seeing stars and getting dizzy, I tell the vet "I feel like I'm going to faint!" She immediately helps me sit down in the shade and gives me a water while I suddenly can't hear, I'm seeing stars, and I feel tingling in my extremities. She said that lots of people get squeamish with blood, but this didn't make sense to me as I've seen lots of blood and been fine. I chalked it up to the heat and being dehydrated, I've had this almost happen before when I got overheated but this time it came on so suddenly, I didn't even realize I was dehydrated until it was too late. Perhaps I was locking my knees? I read online how standing in one place causes blood to pool in the feet and not return to the heart as easily which can also cause fainting, and I was doing a lot of standing, so that could have been it. Let this be a PSA to anyone else who's heat sensitive to not make this mistake!

Alright so let me set the scene for you now: we now have an 800lb horse laying down, a tiny female asian vet, and now dehydrated owner (myself) having to sit out and unable to help. The vet said normally she has her 6' male assistant with her to help, but since it's Sat he wasn't working. The vet tries getting Calvin up by pulling on the rope, yelling at him, and of course encouraging with a lead rope but he's very content to lay down. However, not content to have her stitch him while he's laying down, so we need to get him back up. She then sticks her finger in his wound which then irritates him enough to finally stand up. At this point, I'm a bit horrified yet also pretty impressed at how hard core this vet is! She definitely earned her $$ for that day. Calvin finally gets stitched, stapled, and cleaned up with lots of bute (Phenylbutazone-a strong painkiller) and antibiotics to give over the next 2 weeks, so he'll be absolutely fine folks! Now if you guys can just send positive vibes to Calvin that he won't itch his staples out and he'll heal nicely with no complications, that would be fantastic.

Needless to say, I've had better days. Here he is all stitched up: frankenhorse