The vet and I exchanged texts throughout the day as we planned around our work schedules, and we managed to meet at the donkey fence late yesterday afternoon so he could examine Hattie's eyes. Not only does Hattie have tears running down her face when the sun shines bright, but a small fleshy lump formed near the corner of her left eye. She scratches her leaky eyes on things, and made the lump bleed.
The vet immediately identified the lump as squamous cell carcinoma, and decided to remove it. He said it can be a life threatening problem, not really because it will metastasize and spread through her body, but because if left there it will spread on her face and even dissolve her bones. He said it's not uncommon in horses and donkeys, and he thinks they form in areas that are consistently irritated. He had all the gear to remove it in his mobile surgery, so he walked Hattie near the truck, tranquilized her, shaved and washed her face, and cut the lump away and stitched her up.
Brandon wanted to know if it was normal for her to look so weird and fat! I told him she looks beautiful, for a donkey, and the vet said she was perfect - both donkeys looked the way they were supposed to, and weren't over fed.
While she was knocked out, he looked closely in her nostrils with his headlamp and also could not find any tear ducts. He put green dye in her eyes and looked for it to show up in her nose, and it didn't, it just ran down her face. While he was operating he kept wiping away the tears that pooled in her eye. I think it's really true, she doesn't have tear ducts, just like the other vet said.
Hattie was so groggy after the surgery that it took a while to get her to sit up. Once she was sort of propped up and looked like she was going to come around, the vet and his technician left to stitch up a calf that had cut itself badly. I asked the vet technician, who was the same lady that came when Rufus was castrated a few years ago, if she still still liked her job, since she seemed so tired and grumpy. She said it was getting to her, not wrestling with the animals, which she's very good at, but the long hours with so many hours spent in the truck driving from farm to farm. They left our house around four thirty and still had two more calls to make.
Hattie is a pretty fun drunk. She was wobbly and sweet, and fixated on food like she had a serious case of the munchies. She started pulling up grass before she could even support her head or make her lips move right.
She's only two years old, and the vet tech looked in her mouth while Hattie was drunk and docile and said she still had her baby teeth. The vet said to not be surprised if the cancer comes back, and he warned me not wait to get it treated if I see another lump or abscess. He said if she scratches the stitches open to just put some antibiotic ointment on it. Otherwise, I didn't have to do anything for her wound. He said the face heals very well. When I asked if this was going to shorten her lifespan, he said, "It's going to be an issue."
When asked if there was anything that could be done for her leaky eyes, which cause the irritation, that probably caused the cancer, he said no. Then he said, "Well, there is new research where they are trying to install artificial tear ducts that drain into the sinus cavity." Then he scoffed and said, "I mean, if you want to spend ten thousand dollars. Ha!" Brandon laughed too. Hmph. I think Hattie and I are stuck with her leaky eyes and fly management.
Eventually Hattie made it to her feet and stayed focused on eating grass. She wasn't chewing it very well though, and sometimes big chunks of wet grass would fall out of her drunk mouth. I didn't worry about it for a while, but then I started to be concerned that she was going to make herself sick gorging on un-chewed grass when she's been on a diet of hay, so I started to pull her toward her fence. She wobbled and paused and nearly fell over, so it was a slow walk and she kept getting more grass.
When we got to her gate, she refused to go in. She posted up and I could not get her to budge. It didn't help that Rufus was jealous of Hattie's outing and wanted to come out when the gate was open. After a long time I resorted to giving Hattie treats to get her to move, and that was a bad idea. She gagged on sunflower seeds mixed with grass, and then she choked, for real. She panicked when she couldn't breath, and flailed, and then fell over on the fence, which bounced her to the ground where she convulsed and I braced myself to watch her die. Oh, Hattie! But then she started to breath again, I think because the fall dislodged the clog. I get an F for post operative care.
We both sat on the ground for a while as she took slow breaths and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. When she stood up, she stood with her head hanging while green drool ran from her lips and she struggled to swallow over and over. With her drunk stance, and with the green eye drops running down her half shaved face with swollen stitches, and green drool coming from her lips and nose, she looked so pitiful, but she was alive!
It took several hours for her to swallow the lump. I texted the vet and he said to remove her food but that most chokes resolve themselves. On my last check before I made myself lay down, even though I knew sleep would be impossible after such an adrenaline rush, she wasn't trying to swallow any more. This morning as soon as I stepped out of the house she brayed long and hard and was more than ready for breakfast. Even the swelling on her stitches had gone down. She's okay.
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