Day five: We're still not there ...

The trip to the barn was hopeful as I had a good feeling after the last treatment on Sunday. With the syringes and bottles of drugs in the bag I arrived at the barn. First the Dermosedan gel under the tongue as this might add to the sedation when in combination. 20 min later I gave him the 6 ml Xylazine and 1.5 ml of butorphanol both IM. Since the same drugs IV (4 ml Xylazine and ?ml of butorphanol) worked within 5 min on Sunday I did not expect to have to wait too long.

Over the next hour his head dropped down to about chest level and he showed the characteristic head shaking and droopy eye, but there was not much else going. Thinking IM just takes a little longer then IV I wait patiently. When after the 60 min he starts to roam and look for hay scraps I fear we might have a problem. I decide to give him more Xylazine but IV this time and prepare the syringe with 2ml. After all as a trained Phlebotomist how hard can it be giving an IV injection to a horse compared to drawing a neonatal blood sample ??? I don't dare to give him more as I don't know what is still in his system and I don't want him to drop down. Luckily within min he starts to wobble on his legs and his head is about a foot from the floor drooling.

Okay we're ready ... I put on my gloves and prepare the cream. But Oh boy ... the moment I come close to his ears his head is up with still wobbly legs and there is no way I can get to his ears. I hang on and manage to get a glob in his left ear old style ... For his right ear I try the other old trick of blind folding but he knows now what is up and runs blind into the wall. I manage to get a blob into his ear but kind of halfheartedly ... We're now at a stand off and look each other in the eye. He's weary, I'm about to cry ... Within 30 min of giving the 2ml IV he's poking around and looking for hay again. I give up for the day.

This is NOT how I had imagined this treatment to go. Disillusioned I drive home and ponder over what happened. I think the 6 ml IM was not enough and had left the system mostly by the time I gave the 2ml IV. This then in it's turn was not enough to sedate him and there we were.

Writing this I'm a little more calmed down about it and have a plan for Saturday. He'll get both the Xylazine 4ml and 1.5 ml butorphanol in his veins. If that does not work we'll go back to the drawing board and I sure hope we'll get all treatments done before we run out of drugs that work.