Eve looks a little down this morning. Its hot here, her sling is surely irritating and obviously she feels sick, tired and weak. Shes still munching her food though, taking particular interest in her mineral block. Shes supposed to lick that, but shes decided its better to bite chunks off it and suck on them. Pretty good for an old girl with worn teeth I thought. :) The quarantine pen isnt a hospital room. There are flies, its hot and theres a lot of cleaning to do around her every day. She is on rubber matting with wood shavings over it, but I need to lift all of that a couple of times a day to let the concrete underneath dry out because the urine finds its way under there. How I would love a room with temperature control and sealed lino and all the mod cons! At this stage though, Im having pleasant daydreams about a hospital hoist like the ones I use in my paid job working with people with profound disabilities. 280kg capacity, battery operated, on wheels and not a rope in sight to burn my hands. Just the press of a button and it does all the work. Sorry, I went to my happy place for a minute there... ;) Eve still doesnt want to use her hind legs to bear any weight at all. She stands her front legs up in the sling and moves from side to side clumsily to get from hay to water to headrest, but shes just letting the rest of her weight hang there. The positive to that sentence is that a week ago she wasnt using her front legs either. She also spent last night lying upright but on one hip, back legs pointing in one direction, just the way a healthy sheep would lie. I didnt put her in that position; she moved her hind legs and centre of gravity all on her own. The hind legs arent weight bearing yet, but theyre improving. Her manure and urine are normal again, the oedema continues to reduce and the necrosis is lifting and looks like it will form a scab and heal very well in time. The bruising is diminishing too, and she is spending longer periods of time with her head raised. All of this is good, but not as important as her RBC count, and shes still so desperately pale. There is no colour to her gums at all - there is no visible improvement in the anaemia, and thats the one thing she needs more than anything else.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 00:23:45 +0000
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