Rolling Dog Farm Blog

We noticed yesterday evening that blind Darby had a swollen left eyelid where our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, had removed a cancerous growth last week.  Bill had closed up the incision with surgical staples, and everything looked good until we saw it all puffed up.  Bill and I connected by phone around noon today, and of course his first concern was infection.  He asked me to see if I could remove the staples at the outer edges of the incision, then lance it … the objective being to get some drainage going. 

I was a bit dubious because we don’t have the specialized staple removers (your office desk kind won’t do!).  Surgical staples are like a box with four corners to them, extending all the way into the flesh and up underneath in a 360 degree "grab."  But Bill explained how I could use two hemostats to pull the staples out.  We do happen to have hemostats here, so I figured we’d give it a try and see if Darby would cooperate.  (From Wikipedia:  a hemostat "is a surgical tool which resembles a set of scissors with a locking clamp replacing the blade.")  I also needed to start her on antibiotics.

If you click on this second photo to enlarge it, you should be able to see the start of the row of staples above Darby’s eye.  There were more staples than this, but because of the swollen curvature, most of them are "around the corner."

So this evening after we finished putting all the horses up and feeding them, we walked Darby from Scout’s Barn to the medical stall in Beauty’s Barn.  We loaded her into the horse stock, closed the butt plate behind her, and she immediately became a brat:  Pawing with her hooves, tossing her head up and down, and pushing at us with her face.  Alayne was doing everything she could to get Darby to settle down.  This did not look like a horse who was going to cooperate with some improvised medical procedure that involved ripping metal staples out of her flesh.  Hmm.

Then an amazing thing happened. As soon as I attached the hemostat to the first staple, she became motionless.  Absolutely still.  I pried one edge of the staple up and out in a butterfly-like motion.  She didn’t budge.  I did the other side.  And out came the staple. 

Then she started being a brat again. 

I cupped my hand over Darby’s eye and she immediately quieted down … and when she felt the hemostat on her skin, she went still again.  Then I began removing the other staple … with equal success.  Whew.  But we weren’t done — I still had to lance it!  I took a scalpel and gently inserted it into each corner of the incision site.  I thought she’d rear up as soon as I pierced her skin, but again, she didn’t budge.  Alayne and I were astonished.

When she realized we were finished, she went right back to brat-mode.  I guess if she’s going to be a model patient for when it counts, she can be a brat the rest of the time, huh?

(Click on photos for larger image.)