Wherein I Fabricate Disaster

Kat has been on stall rest while we try to minimize damage to her fetlock wound - it's a very tricky place to have an injury, I'm learning.

Sunday I wanted to bring Kat down to the main barn to groom her a bit and spend some time with her, but she barely agreed to come out of her stall. She was holding her right front up and hobbling over it. I decided that I would soak the foot, liniment the leg, and see what Monday brought around. I inspected the leg, I ran my fingers over every crevice and couldn't find anything wrong, but the mare was clearly unhappy.

She was lethargic and dull Monday morning, still avoiding bearing weight on that leg. I ran my fingers over the leg again, pinching and looking for reactivity, feeling for heat, checking her pulse. I called the vet, was told it'd be a few hours, and proceeded to manufacture worst-case scenarios until he showed up.

What if she needed an extended rehab? Would I be able to execute a proper rehab out of my farm? Do I have the facilities, the time, the control? Could I afford to send her to a center designed for rehabilitation? How would we keep her brain from leaking out between her ears?

When I led her down to meet the vet and she hopped over the leg, three-legged lame, he said, "Why, how did you even tell she was lame?" It was that comment that broke my anxiety a bit, and when he  pulled the shoe to dig the hoof out, he found a pretty hefty abscess.

Jeez! All that panic for something that will resolve as the abscess drains and she heals up.