Long time no update it seems. Things have been proper manic – when I’m not working or riding or studying, I do finance for the Discworld Convention which took place last weekend so I’ve been run off my feet for the past month or so! Madness. Hopefully things are calming down now.
As ever things have been a bit up and down. The hole is now closed and the vet says there is no infection remaining* and he’s happy with that. :db: However, the jaw bone itself still has the ossifying sarcoma and has become wider since the surgery so the long term game is still one of wait and see if it decides to stop growing. My vet feels it’s unlikely to stop completely, but should slow down; this means at some point it’s likely the growth will cause him pain and interfere with his eating and there’s little they can do at that point as any surgical intervention will simply cause the tumour’s growth to accelerate. But for the moment he’s happy and pain free so we push on and keep it under observation. No idea how long we might have until it causes an issue – could be 2 years, could be 15. Who knows. 😥
With that basically sorted however he’s been diagnosed with low grade laminitis, I previously mentioned we’d made changes to his grazing and now we’re soaking his hay for longer. He was trimmed on Wednesday and she found no pulses, where the vet could feel faint ones so I think it’s going the right way. Noticeably footy after the trimming though so I’m not sure what to do about that.
Riding wise I’ve had one lesson with my new instructor and we have another this week. We’re starting with working on getting him off the leg and even in a week or so I’m seeing positive changes so I’m pleased with that too. We’ve been working on transitions every 6 seconds or so to liven him up and I feel like in even this short time he’s moving more forward. I’m very keen to see what Claudia thinks tomorrow!
Anyway, not a proper post without a picture. He’s still the laziest thing ever – was curled up in bed when I arrived at 3pm yesterday :wub: :wub: :wub:
*what we thought was signs of infection is actually soft tissue that’s been displaced due to the widening of the jaw bone.