Garnet’s Surgery- Day One

Today we drove Garnet up to the hospital in preparation for her surgery Friday morning. It was thankfully much cooler than it has been over the past few days, which made the trip nicer for her.

Garnet was not interested in getting into the trailer, but we had a short discussion and she walked right in after a few minutes. Thankfully the trip to the hospital was relatively short and she did well on the ride over.

When we arrived at the hospital, the surgeon and his team took over and immediately scoped Garnet’s airway to get a clear idea of the arytenoid cartilage. Garnet was actually relatively calm after the trailer ride, but her breathing was still obviously labored. The surgeon asked if Garnet’s breathing at the time was as worse as it got, and we told him no, it would often get much worse, which was essentially why we were there and decided it was necessary to go through with the surgery.

The scope showed that there was a great deal of swelling and there was puss on the right side, indicating infection and a possible abscess. The surgeon said that they were only going to remove the infected side, so she will still be able to neigh and whinny after the surgery.

Dr. Fischer seemed to be very confident that Garnet would have a normal life after the surgery and that it would go well. He expects Garnet to be in the hospital for about five to seven days, and then she will be able to come home- hopefully a changed horse, able to run around and breathe normally!

We visited Garnet in the her stall before we left- she was interested in everything around her, but she was not scared or upset at all. She was really more interested in picking through the small pieces of straw that were strewn apart in the shavings rather than dealing with us, but we told her that we loved her and told her to be a good girl. She was relatively non-committal to that statement.

We will keep you updated as to Garnet’s progress, but we are very hopeful that all will go well and our little girl will soon be able to be a normal horse again.

Read about the next step in Garnet’s surgery here.