A break during the consumption of his post-workout-beet-pulp for head scritches. #boldarcher #ottb #thoroughbred #spoiledpony

A photo posted by bekaburke (@bekaburke) on Nov 11, 2014 at 1:30pm PST

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I got up early on January first to do what hopefully won't be the theme for 2015:  meet the vet.

But, honestly, after nearly three weeks of waking up over an hour early to spend fifteen minutes changing his wraps and checking for blood, getting up at 7:30 was no problem.  Anxious, too, you know.  Oh, hey, can I mention how much I love books on tape now?  Oh, sorry, "audiobooks".  And that my constant highway driving has bumped the baby Fiesta up to 40 mpg?

"Hi.  I'm totally fucking handsome and worth all this pain."

• There might be a tiny hole trying to push out pus and dead bone.  He isn't convinced that it's sequestrum and, until Archie starts acting like it hurts, we're going to treat it like it isn't.
• The proud flesh.  He's had me keep the leg open since the visit, texting photos, because he said that oxygen works wonders and he thinks that's all the leg needs.  If the proud flesh doesn't look better tomorrow morning, we're going to continue with the leg wraps for another week.  And then we'll consider a little slicing and dicing of the proud flesh.  I told him I didn't care about it cosmetically, but he said that the proud flesh would prolong the healing time.  Boo.

A little angry after the poking and prodding and stitch removal.

A little angrier, but I don't think it would have happened if it hadn't been poked and prodded prior.

So this fugly thing is what I sent him at 6:45 this morning.

I opted not to ride today because he did have some swelling in the inside of that leg.  Vet wasn't concerned about it and told me to put some Surpass on it.  Cross your fingers for tomorrow!  (Also, because our dryer/house tried to commit arson and homicide, so the inlaws are coming to help.)

Finally, for those of y'all that like my last post, here's the recap I did of 2013.

*And, old barn owner, this is why I didn't switch vets when you told me you couldn't use him anymore.  After you didn't follow his medical advise, didn't attend the appointment but sent your friend in your place, and didn't follow up, and ultimately had to have your horse euthanized.