wasmi.net

The weekend started off great. I went to check on the horses, who were both fine. (Cheryl had gone to visit a friend and was out-of-state for the weekend. I was checking up on her horse, as well as mine.)
Then we had a nice stroll downtown for a cup of coffee before we had to leave for our first party.
It was Andy's first birthday party, and we drove to Tim and Shawnna's house to celebrate. There were ham sandwiches and potato chips and nice cake and cupcakes. Derek took one look at all of the guests, and ran for the safety of Andy's room. He periodically ran outside to check up on the latest developments. Andy walked around very happily, and Derek tried to interact with him quite often. (Andy's too young to pay much attention to him right now!)
By the time we had to leave, Derek had warmed up to the party guests and was happily playing with Andy's toys in the living room. Derek was going to spend the night with Doodah and Papa, as Brian and I had to drive to Don and Amy's for the next party of the evening.
We headed off to Don and Amy's next. They had a huge quantity of food, most of it catered by a Lebanese restaurant. It was tasty!
There was a crazy gift exchange, in which the next people in line could "steal" the best gifts. I ended up with a pretty good gift, though some of the ones that were brought in were a bit odd! (A co-worker's wife ended up with a rock with a face on it!)
We did not get home until midnight.
Sunday was supposed to have another party in the middle of the afternoon, but I called them up and said I couldn't make it. It was just too much to squeeze it in with all we had to do. We found a tree, almost finished the shopping, and then headed home. I had mountains of presents to wrap.
I had everything in piles on the living room floor, and the phone rang. It was the woman at whose stable I board Kai. She said he hadn't eaten that morning and wasn't eating dinner, either. I suspected colic and went right over to check on him. He wasn't in severe excruciating pain, but it was obvious that he was very uncomfortable.
I called the vet right away (you don't mess around with colic or you will have a dead horse), and surprisingly, she was able to come right out (odd, being a Sunday night.) His temperature was normal, but his heart rate was elevated and the vet did a rectal exam. Kai hardly had anything in his intestines, and what he did have was small and hard, as if all of the moisture had been leeched out of it.
She couldn't locate the impaction, but she was pretty sure that it wasn't a twisted intestine, which was very good news.
She gave him some pain medicine, and stuck a tube down his nose so that she could fill him up with fluids. She put some mineral oil in the water. She said "if it comes out the other end, then we know that he's not completely blocked."
I spent some time walking him around until he did finally expel some fecal matter.
The next morning, the mineral oil was coming out the right end and Kai was showing signs of being hungry again. The vet came out again first thing in the morning, and checked him over. He looks like he is on the mend. I had to go out again late last night and give him some medicine and some salt to encourage him to drink more water. No grain for Kai until today (Tuesday), but he is eating hay again and drinking water. We will try adding a bit of grain this evening.
After all of this, I was exhausted and needed to sleep. Well, I was able to get a couple of hours of sleep.
Derek's school Christmas program is tonight. I hope I don't fall asleep during it! I think he will be singing Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, Holly Jolly Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman! We have the video camera charged up!