New diagnosis may be the key to everything
Swingin’ D Horse Rescue has some good news and some bad news about our precious Anastasia. The latest twist in the Missouri Fox Trotter’s long and painful journey may wind up being the answer to all our questions.
Donors saved Ani from slaughter 17 months ago. She was so lame, we believed we were picking her up from the kill lot, only to give her a quiet, clean, humane death under the compassionate care of our veterinarian. We were prepared to bear the cost of euthanizing and burying her if it meant saving her the agonizing days-long haul, standing on mangled feet, with no food or water, crammed into a trailer with other doomed and terrified souls bound for Mexico, and a brutal and inhumane slaughter. But Anastasia had other plans.
From the moment Ani hobbled off the trailer at the Muskogee Animal Medical Center and battled through her pain and fear like a warrior princess, her will to live was as unmistakable as it was undeniable.
Chasing Symptoms
I can’t even count the times Ani has almost recovered, then relapsed, improved a little, then crashed even harder. I swear, the term, “One step forward, two steps back,” was spoken with Ani in mind.
We’ve spent thousands upon thousands of dollars treating and preventing her ailments – building her a climate-controlled stall, trying every supplement known to mankind, treating her metabolic disorder, rebuilding her feet, battling her anhidrosis, treating abscess after abscess…
About a year ago, the vet started treating her for a metabolic disorder. Ani improved, but continued with bouts of lameness – either from abscesses or laminitis. Last week, during FloatFest 2020 – the herd’s annual dental exams and floats – Dr. Barnett recommended we check her for Cushings Disease, an endocrine disorder that affects older horses. We’d never considered Cushings because A) The test is expensive, and B) Ani didn’t look like a typical Cushings horse. Yes, she’s an easy keeper with fat pouches that are characteristic of metabolic disease, but her coat is healthy, she doesn’t have a pot belly and she has decent muscle tone.
(Side note about the importance of donations: Because donors funded much of FloatFest, I was able to use the money I would have spent on dental work, to pony up for the Cushings test. I would not have been able to afford it without donor support!)
Welp, turns out we wasted thousands of dollars trying to save the few hundred for the test, because Ani is about as Cushings as a horse can get.
Despite our ignorance to the core cause of Ani’s troubles, we’ve successfully remodeled her right foot, and we’ve made significant progress on the left.
Now for some good news
Believe it or not, even though Cushings is incurable and terminal and horrible and awful, the diagnosis is actually good news! It explains everything – the constant abscesses, the never-ending laminitis, the lethargy, the incessant hunger, the swinging from drenched in sticky sweat to anhidrosis, the inability to bear temperature changes… All this time we’ve been blaming Ani’s metabolic disorder, doing our best to treat every single little flare-up, when all along, there’s been one answer to every battle we’ve waged over the last year and a half: Cushings.
The best news is, with treatment, Cushings horses go on to live comfortable, happy lives. Like diabetics require insulin, Cushings horses require a daily dose of medication to resolve the immunodeficiency that wreaks systemwide havoc.
Back to the bad news
So, here’s the bad news. Anastasia’s thyroid prescription already runs about $1 per day. Her supplements also cost about as much. A prescription for pergolide mesylate – the medication that treats Cushings – will cost about $2 per day, making Anastasia’s annual tab for medications alone nearly $1,500.
Finding qualified adopters who can bear the routine expense of horse ownership is challenging enough – especially in these uncertain times; so it’s going to take some pretty exceptional adopters to entrust with Ani’s special needs. To be honest, I’ve grown to love her so much through all these months providing her intensive care, I’m just fine with keeping her around a while.
If Ani lives another 10 years, we’re looking at $15,000 for medication just to keep her comfortable. And that’s just one horse.
How you can help
Swingin’ D survives on donations from supporters who believe in our mission to save unwanted horses like Ani from the threat of foreign slaughter, and invest in the veterinary care, training, nutrition and time required to ensure they’re never discarded again. Besides one part-time ranch hand who puts in a few hours a week, no one makes a salary or perks at Swingin’ D. We’re all volunteers, ponying up our own time and treasure to care for the horses we save.
Every penny we bring in goes toward improving the quality of life of horses like Ani. The more we collect, the better they live!
To ensure your donation goes directly to Anastasia’s care, you can purchase a gift card at Valley Vet, where we buy her prescriptions. You can also visit our gift registry to help cover some of the other essentials so that we can afford to meet Ani’s special needs.
We’ve already purchased Ani’s prescriptions for the next few months, but we hope to have our little angel around for another dozen or so years, and she’ll need these medications for the rest of her life.
Hopefully, now that we know what’s been causing Anastasia’s many health problems, we can start the treatment that will finally allow her to live like a normal horse!
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