Vacation to Staycation

As I write this, I am supposed to be sitting on a plane somewhere over Ohio on my way to visit my sister for a week of relaxation and auntie/niece bonding time in Santa Cruz, California.  Our plans have changed.  Horses often have impeccable timing.

Yesterday, just before noon, Penny called me and said that Nox was having a terrible nosebleed.  She told me that his stall was covered in blood and it was pooling at his feet in the paddock.  I abandoned my suitcase packing, asked her to call the vet, and jumped in the car to head over.  By the time I arrived at the barn, the bleeding has slowed and Penny had spoken to our local vet, who recommended that we call the Cornell University Equine Hospital.  I talked to a vet at Cornell named Dr. Hill and she recommended that we get Nox on a trailer and get him to the hospital as soon as possible.  Penny already had the trailer hooked up to the truck.

Nosebleeds in horses are a symptom of a couple of different conditions.  One is very serious and fatal, called Guttural Pouch Mycosis.  This is where the horse develops a fungal infection in the guttural pouch, which contains arteries and nerves, and the fungus erodes the arterial wall and causes bleeding.  Sometimes the horse has a few minor nosebleeds before the artery is completely eroded and the horse eventually has a catastrophic nosebleed and essentially bleeds out and dies.  The only way to know if a horse has this condition is to put a scope up their nose and into their guttural pouch to see if there is an infection. 

A screen shot of my frantic Google search for Guttural Pouch Mycosis. 

Nox, as I recently related in the post about moving him to Penny's barn, refuses to get into trailers these days.  I asked my local vet to come sedate Nox so we could hopefully get him into the trailer.  As she was injecting the sedative, she told me that a few months ago, another one of her clients ignored a nosebleed and her horse ended up having a catastrophic nosebleed a few days later and died on the trailer on the way to Cornell.  This may be a rare condition, but it does happen.  I tried to stay out of panic mode as Nox slid into a drugged state and I hoped we could get him on the trailer quickly.  After a few minutes of tugging, pushing, and pulling, Nox drunkenly stumbled onto the trailer.  Best Husband Ever was able to get the day off at the last minute and he accompanied us on the 2 1/2 hour drive to Cornell, driving my car while I rode in the truck with Penny.

Dr. Hill and a whole team of veterinary students met us at the door to the state-of-the-art hospital.  The facility is amazing and the staff are so incredibly nice.  The floors are all covered with rubber flooring, but the flooring changes colors from room to room.  Nox did not want to step on the different colored flooring and I ended up having to back him into various rooms and hallways, even after he was sedated again.  He is so stubborn.  We weighed him first and he weighs 1,325 lbs!  I had always guessed 1,200 lbs... he's a big horse.  Dr. Hill and her team scoped Nox's guttural pouch and to everyone's extreme relief, everything looked clear and normal.  Nox did not have a guttural pouch infection.

However, we are not out of the woods yet.  He was bleeding heavily and there are other conditions, though not as life threatening, that cause nosebleeds.  Nox is scheduled for radiographs this morning to see if there are any masses or tumors in his sinus cavity that may be hemorrhaging.  These masses and tumors are treatable through minimally invasive procedures.  I'm waiting now for a phone call to see what Dr. Hill has found and what our next steps will be for treatment.

I canceled our vacation to California.  I'm not sure how long Nox will be at the hospital and what kind of decisions I'll need to make over the next couple of days, and so I had to stay close.  We were able to get credit for our next booked flights, so all is not lost, but I'm terribly disappointed to miss seeing my sister, her husband, and my beautiful niece.  Best Husband Ever and I are scheduled for another trip to California in November for a family wedding, and now we are looking forward to that trip even more.

I will keep everyone updated on Nox's progress and in the meantime, please think positive thoughts for him and throw out some good vibes for his speedy recovery.