It's Healing!

I'm back from my trip, and have to send a big shout out to my barn buddies who did daily care on Rhio's wound for me and are the reason it looks so fantastic right now!  Becca, Karen, Teresa, Kathy, & Chris - you guys rock!

How it looks today, 2-23-10.  You can see the coronary band has settled back down into a more normal position and there is really no swelling left.

For comparison, here is a photo from Day 1, back at the end of January.

The new booting situation - a rubber bell boot with a little duct tape for good measure

Apparently while I was gone Rhio got pretty tired of wearing his boot, and shredded several neoprene pastern wraps as well as one neoprene bell boot.  His heels were getting a bit rubbed by the boot, and it trapped so much moisture for so many days that his skin was definitely on the soft/squishy side instead of nicely resilient.  The ladies did a great job of managing this problem (above & beyond, really - blow drying his pastern with a hair dryer! as well as stalling him for periods of time to give him a break without the boot), but I'm really hoping that this new plan for protecting the area will work because it will allow his skin to breathe.  I'm using zinc oxide ointment (Desitin) to moisturize & protect the wound itself beneath the bell boot.  Fingers crossed that it will all be intact when I go out tomorrow!

Rhio is so over the whole fussing-with-his-foot thing