Breathing Through Straws

I suck suck double suck at posting.  Again.

So remember that time I said Mollies heaves was making an appearance?  But it wasn't that bad so we were just going to wait and see?  Well it got that bad.  Real fast.

Unrelated pano of the fields.

The first day of our clinic this past weekend Mollie was coughing and wheezing quite a bit, which was disheartening.  The next day though (which I just realized I haven't even posted about!!) she was much better, coughing was at a minimum and she only wheezed a few times.  This whole bad/not so bad pattern was how I had observed her the last few weeks, so it seemed par for the course.  I rode again on Tuesday and she only coughed once, and had no wheezing.  I really thought the Freeway I had started her on was starting to kick in, and we'd found a miracle cure.

Then I got to the barn Friday and as I walked out to Mollie's field I realized I could hear her breathing.  From her field.  At rest.  From about 100 yards away.  F@*#*ck.

I haltered her, and realized her nostrils were flared out so far they were perfect circles, and they were staying there.  So I obviously started crying immediately and brought her up to the barn.  I decided to give her a bath (it was also a thousand degrees) and called the vet, while doing my best not to strangle the secretary through the phone.  I absolutely adore my vet, but speaking with her secretary is painful.  As I stood there explaining that MY HORSE COULDN'T BREATHE she proceeded to tell me the vet could come out to see us on Tuesday.  IT WAS FRIDAY.  I did my best to kindly ask that the vet call me directly when she could, and then proceeded to keep freaking out.

After I hung up and freaked out to everyone in sight I was then informed another vet was coming out to look at another horse and maybe I should calm the eff down and call them to see if they could look at Molls as well.  Luckily they could, and 20 minutes later they were there.  I gave the vet the run down, she looked at Mollie, listened to her trachea, and immediately motioned her vet student over and said, "You've got to come listen, you'll never hear anything like this again."

Awesome.

It was determined that Mollie has severe horse-y asthma/COPD.  After a physical exam and a lung wash (read: the most heart breaking and sad thing I've ever watched) the vet prescribed Molls some prednazone for the foreseeable future, and based on the results of the lung wash (which I should get back today) we'll either stick with that or make some adjustments to her treatment.

So. Much. Prednazone.

Each day Mollie has sounded a little better and today I even hopped on for a 10 minute walk.  Her nostrils flared just the tiniest bit after I got off but her wheezing wasn't audible, which is a huge improvement.  Fingers crossed she keeps getting better, because seeing my little girl that sick sucked.