Please send Taran healing thoughts

Last night when I got home from work, I went out to see the progress on the guest house renovation. As I was standing in the kitchen admiring the now-level floor, I looked out the window to see the boys snacking from a hay feeder. Taran was there too, contentedly munching.

Not five minutes later, after looking at a few more house-related things, I looked back out the window. Cash, Saga, and Red had wandered off, but Taran was still standing at the feeder, not eating. He had the beginnings of a sweat patch on his neck, and his stance was odd. I couldn't see his feet from where I was, but as I watched I noticed that he was breathing a bit heavily.

When I got to him, he was holding his left front up off the ground. There was a framing nail in the frog.

Everything says not to pull the nail, but there was still an inch of it sticking out. There was no way I was going to be able to stabilize his foot with the nail in it and get him out of the pasture without either pushing the nail further in or having it start grinding around in the foot. So I got pliers, a clean hand towel, and vetwrap. We got the nail out (it had gone in about an inch), and I put the towel on and vetwrapped it in place. The wound bled but not excessively. We got him into the stall, where he happily tucked into some alfalfa, and I called the emergency vet and left a message. I debated pulling off the towel to try to clean out the foot, but decided to wait for the vet to call back. In the meantime, I put standing wraps on his other three legs for support.

The vet recommended I bring him in, so I hitched up (thank GOODNESS I had Fuzzypony's truck - mine is not at the house right now) and we loaded. I backed right into the barn (LOVE MY BARN) so he would have to walk as little as possible. I also found a hoof wrap that I had bought several years ago for when your horse loses a shoe, and I put that over the vetwrap dressing for extra cushion. I'm sure I pissed off a whole lot of people as I drove 40 mph to the vet clinic, but given that he wasn't too keen to put weight on the damaged foot, I didn't want to jostle him any more than necessary.

Once at the clinic they sedated him, gave him pain meds, and blocked the foot. They pulled off the wrapping and scrubbed his foot, then put dye in the puncture and took several x-rays.

The situation is not good. The nail compromised both the navicular bursae and the coffin joint. The only thing it seems to have missed is the DDFT.

The current course of action is to levage both joints daily and inject antibiotics directly. They debrided the bottom of his foot so that it can drain. They also did an antibiotic treatment to his leg that involved a tourniquet (can't recall what that's called though). Unfortunately, this is often not successful and surgery is the only option (yes, we will go to surgery if it comes to that). Even then, the outcome is guarded.

So please, send Taran some healing thoughts. He sure could use them right now. Fuzzypony, who is currently out of the country (we're in touch and I'm keeping her informed of things as they happen), could probably also use a few virtual hugs too.