What A Brat

Well, 1/2 a bag of plasma into little Flash...And that was no easy feat! I am hoping like hell that is enough to jump start his system and head off any trouble.

What a little stinker!!

The little man has an A.T.T.I.T.U.D.E.!! LOL

Getting the catheter into his neck was difficult enough...He struggled and thrashed around and it took 2 of us to hold his squirmy, little butt. And he kept trying to reach around and bite the vet.

We finally got him all set up and the IV was dripping and he decided to get a little shocky on us. The IV was disconnected and we let him settle down. The vet turned the drip down and reconnected him.

That is when the real fun started. Flash decided that the best place to be was UNDER his mother.

I guess when you are tiny enough to stand under your protection, that is the place to be. LOL....

Of course the problem with that was he kept wanting to come out the other side of where the vet was standing and holding the IV, so I had to stand on the other side of momma and keep pushing him back so he didn't get the line tangled and pull out the catheter.

That just made him mad as hell. I'd push him back and he would charge at me, then he started biting and when that was ineffective...he started wheeling around and trying to kick me. With both hinds.

Now, I can honestly tell you...fighting with a baby...who is determined to tangle himself up under his momma...Especially a momma like Frenchy...who was NOT pleased to have all of this activity going on around her and her precious, little baby....NOT my idea of 'fun'.

We finally had to disconnect the IV again and let him settle down. He nursed for a few minutes and watching him nurse made the vet laugh. Flash is likes to beat on the bag a little bit before he actually starts nursing, so he stretches out and then rams himself forward. A bigger colt would bump a mare in the flank, but Flash is so small, he rams right into the milk spigots. Frenchy is not fond of this, particularly since the little shit occasionally gets up enough force to almost life momma's hind legs off of the ground, but danged if that mare doesn't take it with little more than pinned ears.

After he nursed, it was obvious he was exhausted, so we waited until he laid down, reconnected the IV and finally got about a 1/2 a bag of plasma into him while he slept...

The vet had 2 surgeries scheduled, so he called a tech to come help finish the IV drip, so he could leave. Within 30 minutes of the vet leaving, Flash woke up...Pissed off at the world and proceeded to ram and jam around, in spite of our best attempts to contain him and managed to pull out his catheter. So that was the end of the plasma transfusion. The vet said he would be happy if we could just get a 1/2 a bag into him...and we accomplished a little more than 1/2, so hopefully that is enough. Because none of us want to have to do this with this rotten, little turd again. He is just plumb ornery. LOL.

It would seem that we may have been none to soon in administering the plasma either. Yesterday I heard Flash sneeze a couple of times, which under normal circumstances would be a cute sound, but knowing his system is weak, sneezing is not a sound you want to hear. This morning, he had the faintest hint of a cough with that sneeze. That would fall in line with his elevated white blood cell count. The normal wbc is 16,000. Flash's was 22,000. That, with the less than optimal IgG count, is what prompted the vet to want to administer the plasma. It does no good to administer antibiotics if the immunoglobulin level is not sufficient. The body is unable to utilize the antibiotics.

If everything continues to stay steady, the vet will not be back until Thursday, when he will draw blood again and check to see what is going on. All we can hope for at this point is that Flash continues to stay strong and that his bloodwork comes back more positive.