Snowflake's Story

My Second Week Begins -- Blood Results
April 7, 2005

I am getting multiple small portions of grain wetted with water. I don't like it too wet. My foster family nervously watches me eat. Once I finish as small portion without choking, they give me another small portion. I like not having to dine alone. My people are always with me.

I am put in the pasture with my two marefriends. The fresh Spring grass keeps coming up. My pasturemates are fat and I want to look like them so people will not feel sorry for me.

Dinner time arrives and I go to the barn for my small, wetted meals. Foster Dad also thought that by putting fist-sized chunks of salt block in my feed dish, it would make me eat slower because I have to move them around to find my feed. This way I am forced to eat slower to reduce my chance of choking again. I get brushed and tucked into bed with a big pile of hay. I don't seem to mind anymore if I am in the barn alone at night. I know my friends will be with me in the morning.

The vet calls my foster family in the evening. They tell me my bloodwork is pretty normal which is great news for an old guy like me. The vet did a CBC and a chem panel, plus a thyroid test and a Coggins test. One count is a bit high, but the vet thinks it might be because I was dehydrated on the morning she came because I had choked the night before. The thyroid test is not finished yet, it will take another day or two.

The vet said she found plenty 'o large strongyle eggs in my fecal sample, so we can start the 5 day power pack de-wormer tomorrow.

One of my people stopped by late in the evening. A supporter had donated the power pack dewormer and some priobiotic powder. That powder should help my stomach maintain a healthy level of gut enzymes and such. People are so nice to be donating things to me. I've never been treated this special before.

So many old animals and people are just pushed away into the corners and forgotten about.....we still have something to offer, you know, even if it is just a glimpse of our shadowey past and a reminder that age comes to all of us.