Cautiously Optimistic

 So the last 2 weeks have been a roller coaster.  Uno blew out his abcess, I finally had another lesson where he was just amazing.  He has started really understanding and gaining strength in walk canter transitions.  All is happy and bright.

Meanwhile, Dutch was not doing very well.  His nose had gotten runnier and runnier and any improvements quickly went away.  I was beside myself. So we scheduled a check up with our local vet.  

Our vet is wonderful, but she is just a regular practice.  Since our next steps were lung ultra sound and a brachial lavage, she wanted to refer us to NC State.  No matter what she found with these tests our vet was going to have to consult an internal medicine specialist.  So we headed the 3.5 hours up to the Large Animal Hospital. 

They were great.  They had him in, examined and ultra sounded in less than 30 minutes.  Then we collected the sample from his lungs and took blood.  By the time he was out of sedation we had his CBC results and by the next workday we had his lung pathology.  

We started him on his new course of meds this weekend, and although we have a diagnosis we still do not have a complete treatment plan.  Dutch has severe equine respiratory disease, aka asthma.  .  And just to be the spechul snowflake he is, unlike most asthma horses he is way better inside than out.  We designed our barn to be as open as possible, we also use low dust shavings and hay, of course this means that Dutch gets Summer Pasture Associate Obstructive Airway Disease... He kind a hates his medicine and it is not the easiest to give and we are not 100% certain of our long term treatment plan.

HOWEVER, last night he cantered around his pasture playing with Uno for 20 minutes and his breathing was the same as Uno's at the end.  I think we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and I am so fucking happy.