Whisper stayed up overnight but has been down twice this morning, and the last time her heart rate was up and she was breathing hard, but they got her up after one failed attempt where she was up and then fell down again. Her temp went up to 102 overnight and has been hovering around 101 so she’s definately fighting something. Keep jingling, please.
From Lisa:
What a long night! Kier and I started out the night going out every hour.…..then we cut back to every two hours because Whisper was doing great. We were in the barn at 4:30 and she was up and eating, nickered at us and was generally looking good, so we came in the house and set the alarm for 7:00am (we figured 2 1/2 hours she would be fine).….…I woke up at 6:45 and just felt like something was wrong — we went straight to the barn and poor Whisper was down, shivering and grunting. Started making calls to get people to help get her up (oddly friends aren’t as excited to hear from you at that early time on a Sunday morning when no one has slept much at all due to the extreme weather conditions) Thank goodness for Valerie and Rita, Doug and Geri and their neighbors — they all came right away and it took some time but Whisper is back up and eating again. In the meantime Dr Hannah and Dr Brad got up and slowly made their way here. Quite an adventure — sounds like the roads aren’t very good! Dr Hannah drew some blood and they headed off to the clinic. We are waiting to hear those results. We started Whisper on Ranitidine three times per day and we are continuing the every two hour feeding of warm mash and warm fresh water. Will post more after we hear back from Hannah. Hopefully Kier and I will get naps today! Keep Jingling for Whisper!
From Kier:
Lisa and I got a quick meal in thanks to Jim and we are prepping for what’s expected to be another cold and snowy evening. Whisper’s happy to be getting her warm mash and even nickered at us last time we came down to the barn (an hour ago). Her temperature is at 101.8 and I continue to check regularly…her temperment and attitude are great. We are waiting on lab results from Dr. Hannah and then Lisa and I will post again. Keep Jingling!
*****
Our window of opportunity to move Whisper even if Pilchuck’s heaters were fixed is closed for a little while, but she is actually on IV antibiotics, and our vet is able to get out to where she is at least once a day. We took bloodwork today and she is not dehydrated, just a little anemic, her blood sugar was a bit low so we are mixing in some applesauce and/or molasses in her mash to give her a boost, and her white blood cell count was up which we expected given the fever.
We did finally get an offer for a heated enclosed barn on Fales Road (Hilltop Farm) but at this point the roads are too bad and her needs too intense to want to move her again until the weather clears. They were able to get their barn up to around 40 degrees which is significantly warmer outside so all in all she is doing as well as can be expected, I think.
