Happy Birthday?

I recently celebrated my annual aging event, and boy did the year pass with a BANG! 2 nights before the big day, I got a call from someone at the horse barn. 'You need to get out here and get your vet out here too. Your pony is stuck in the fence and bleeding!'  Enter PANICMODE! Fortunately Mr. Pony and I had been preparing to head out for dinner, so we were ready to go ASAP. Mr. P elected to drive, possibly because I was vibrating with repressed terror, and while he insists that he was speeding, I'm 100% certain that he was doing at least 10 under the speed limit. Grrr.

Fortunately, Copper extracted himself from the fence on his own, and by the time we got there, the lovely people at the barn had him tied up and were hosing off his leg.

{WARNING: EXPLICIT PONY INJURY PICTURES TO FOLLOW}

This is what we found when we arrived.

Pardon the blur- this was from my cell phone, and I was a bit shaken. Yes folks, that white bit in the middle is his BONE. The vet got there about 20 minutes later, and she looked him over and said 'Well, lets sew him up'.

Watching your pony get knocked out {drugs, not with a bat}, flopped on the ground, and stitched up is pretty traumatic. She put in 12-15 stitches total (I think- counting wasn't my strong point right then), and then we wrapped the leg up VERY well. 3.5 days later he is still rocking the same wrap- she wanted us to just wrap it up and leave it alone so it could heal.

Copper is now confined to the stall. He does not like this.

But that is what the little shit gets for ripping his leg open. I'm told it was self defense- he was getting picked on by another horse out in the pasture and misfired into the fence. So we had a long chat about running, not fighting, and if one must fight, one must first aim. He was uninterested in my views.

We'll be doing the big reveal tomorrow evening to see how he has healed thus far. Hopefully he is healing well- he so far hasn't shown any major lameness, which is amazing. Injuries on the legs can really mess with so many important walking things, and I'll be honest, I'd be devastated if this little guy was really broken!

We were very fortunate- you don't want something like this to happen to your baby, but if it must happen, then our situation is what you want. The people at the barn SAW the injury happen, and we had the vet out to him and he was stitched up within 2 hours. My barn elves had him tied up and were hosing his leg before I even got there, which kept down swelling {meaning the vet had something to stitch} and kept the wound clean {keeping down infection possibilities}. We have a nice clean stall to put him in so he'll stay safe, and there are lots of people who have offered to help out. Oh yeah, and my vet rocks!

Please keep your fingers crossed for us tomorrow- Copper and I are BOTH hoping for a speedy recovery! I told Copper that healing quickly would be a great late birthday present!!