Well, it's been a bit of a roller coaster the past few days.

About 7 AM on Christmas morning we got a phone call from the barn where sweetie is keeping one of her horses. They'd been around to check and found him down in his stall and thought he may be colicking. Naturally, she went to check on him and ended up taking him to the vet. Needless to say, I didn't get to spend much time with sweetie Christmas day.

Sunday, she didn't go to see about him because he seemed to be better Saturday night. and the folks at the barn thought he'd had a couple of small BM's. Monday morning we were back to square one. She called the vet out there who found what he thought was a growth in the horse's rectum. So, my bride loaded him (the horse) up and headed south to Birmingham to a vet down there.

She came rolling back in around 2 this morning. He didn't have a growth, but he did have two impactions, one at the front end of his gut, the other at the back end.

This morning they called her and told her that he had some sort of abcess that filled with fluid and was causing all this. Last night, they gave him a 50/50 chance, but today his condition is better, but we won't know for sure for another day or so.

Any other time, I would say "...if the horse had been at home, on grass, this wouldn't have happened..."

BUT, since this whole mess was caused by this abcess and not a simple colic, he would have most likely died had he been at home, simply because he would have been in a thirty acre pasture with eight other horses. It's hard to tell if one is eating, drinking and having normal bodily functions under those circumstances. I am very glad he was at a barn where they stay on top of things.

Now I need to find a liquor store to knock over to pay the vet bill.