Fracture in Left Hind Splint bone
Gator, then Zorba, is now officially named "Bad News Bear"
I had a strange feeling last night about Bear and decided to squeeze him in at Cornell for an ultrasound of his hind left today when we brought Cola for a farrier appointment.
On Saturday (5 days earlier) Bear had come in from his evening in the back field with a very swollen fetlock. It was so tender that he broke away from the wall. We buted him immediately hoping it was a sprained fetlock.
As the days passed, I wrapped him, iced him, cold hosed him and the swelling went down a bit in the fetlock. However he still had a little "overall" swelling and was definitely still lame. We tried stall rest in a 12'x12' stall but he was so anxious we decided to put him out at night.
Today during the ultrasound none of his tendons or ligaments had issues; so we probed deeper. As we were watching we uncovered a hidden puncture wound - very small wound. As we probed we saw what appeared to be a fracture in the splint bone. The fracture isn't even close to where he was swollen.
See a clip from the ultrasound: http://youtu.be/UUs5Nyht8CM
Radiographs confirmed that he had indeed fractured his splint bone.
He is now on antibiotics and bute hoping to avoid any infection in the bone and avoid surgery. He has on a sweat wrap, which will come off tomorrow and be replaced with a pressure wrap. He will be on stall rest 24/7. Because he gets so anxious in a stall, we have him on the broodmare indoor-outdoor stall so he can have a little more space.
Frustration cannot begin to explain where I am at right now. Bear is a horse I just purchased merely 3 weeks ago for jumping lessons. He's a wonderful guy and I was eager to play with him and take him to the fall hunter paces. I went to Cornell to confirm that it was just a simple sprain and could have him on regulated turnout and I came back with something surprising.
He is officially a wonderful Bad News Bear.
