The Walker Chronicles: Worst Weekend Ever

This has been the weekend from hell. And also the reason I haven't posted in so long. To make a long story short, my law school had an event on Friday that I helped organize as a member of the law students society. I spent the entire day preparing for this thing only to have the law students pretty much trash the venue. I mean, they broke a toilet. Actually cracked a porcelain toilet. Ripped the soap dispenser off the wall. Tore down signs. Made an utter mess. And I mean, these are future lawyers. Now, we are liable for the cost of the repairs (somewhere in the vicinity of $500), and because the event was a charity, we can't take the money from the profits so we are simply going to have to take it from the society's discretionary fund (of which I'm the treasurer). I didn't get home until 1 AM even though I was there from 1 PM in the afternoon, and I was less than impressed.

Then I wake up on Saturday to go apartment shopping with my mother for a new place that I need in a few months time. We searched all day and found nothing. This is extremely disappointing because 1) I had about 3 hours sleep before we left, and 2) I could've been writing my paper instead of wasting my time looking at apartments that were either too small, very old, or simply looked like crackheads lived next door.

Trying to bring the swelling down under his face

So after 3 horrible days off from my pony, out I go to the barn. And he is stocked up. And when I say stocked up, I don't even really think that is an adequate term for the amount of swelling in his legs. And now just his legs, but his chest, and his neck, and his chin, and his face. At which point I panic because he looks like a giant oompaloompa, and we call the vet.

While we wait, I cold hose his legs for 40 minutes and then walk him around the arena. I also vetrap an icepack to his chin to try to bring the swelling down there. Ingenious, I might add. After hand walking (and hand jogging) him around the arena for 30 minutes, I feel like the swelling in his legs at least seems to be going down so I return him to his stall while I help bring in the other horses for supper. Literally 10 minutes later, I return to find that all the swelling is back.

The vet arrives and at this point there are quite a few people around all trying to tell their version of the story. In some ways, this was helpful because my instructor showed up at one point and mentioned that Walker was doing some weird stretching after we rode in the lesson that she thought was odd, and to be truthful, I didn't notice it. D was also there and was able to give her account of events over the March break, which would've been immediately before he got sick with the cold and probably when he was starting to get sick. And of course, my barn owner was there to explain what she's noticed throughout the day. I made sure to do my best impression of a crazy delusional horse owner and tell him absolutely everything I noticed, which in some ways, I really think is helpful. I mean, no one knows this horse like I do. I can easily confirm that he has never in the whole time I've owned him ever stocked up, even a little bit. And I can easily explain that although everyone thinks it's great that he's still eating, his appetite is still diminished. Because Walker is a gorby guts, and if he doesn't try to devour his food in 10 seconds flat, there is something wrong.

Also notice that he has only 1 fuzzy left on his halter.
I'm going to have to buy those things in bulk.

So the vet prescribed overnight turnout in the indoor arena so that he could stretch his legs until he got the results from the tests tomorrow around noon. And because the indoor arena isn't heated, I finally got to use that winter blanket that I have been holding onto all winter. I just wish it was under better circumstances.

The only good that came out of this weekend is that I went shopping at Greenhawk during the sale and got Walker lots of great loot. I wanted to buy him a first aid kit but I was rather disappointed at the selection they had. I could barely find gauze and vetrap, let alone the more complex stuff. However, if you spent $150 (which was easy to do), you got a saddle pad half off so I got Walker a green one to try something new. And my mother spoiled him with a lovely half pad with memory foam that I think is really going to do wonders for his back. I was going to try it out today but, well, you know, other things got in the way. :(