Merry Christmas Everyone!! Check out my photos of foals and a puppy!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Hope all my lovely followers and viewers had an amazing Christmas eve and safe Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve was spent getting ready for the party at a friends house and getting the last minute touches done for Christmas day.

I made 3 choc ripple cakes, one with muscat (18+ only) and 2 non alcoholic one for the children ( and one to take to my boyfriends family lunch too).

Mum and I also made a watermelon desert with mashmellows, rolled watermelon, red grapes which was received equally well by those at the party.

Super cute foals I took photos of at the xmass eve party!

I spent the day at my folks place in the morning and then traveled to the city to have 2nd Christmas lunch with my boyfriends family.

 During the gift giving, I spotted Bondi, the Bennington terrier, under the table getting up to some mischief with the napkins!

After an amazing 2nd lunch, we all sat down for a bit of a rest and the most unusual storm happened! Rain then hail! The size of marbles!

Tell you what, 2 xmass lunches in 1 day is a lot of food!!

My make up Christmas eve

I'll post pictures of my pressies later, I was very spoilt by my boyfriends family as well as my own!

Here is a video I took during the storm! 

Biopsy Results: Fi-bro Sarcoma

I received a call from my vet today, the results from the biopsy is that the lump is a fi-bro sarcoma, an aggressive, fast growing, untreatable and inoperable tumour.. the results could not have been much worse.. have not cried this much since I cannot remember..

It's a tumour of the connective tissue, destroying bone and thus the reason why some of Bertie's teeth directly under the lump were wobbly.
There is nothing we could have done to prevent it, it's an random thing that occurs apparently and no reason or rhyme why it occurs.
As it is fast growing, it will continue to grow and may advance into his other nostril interfering with his breathing which is something I will need to look out for.

When I asked about how much pain he might be in, it was described as a dull throbbing pain as opposed to a sharp unmanageable pain and signs that the pain has increased is loss of interest in life, reduced interest in eating and sudden weight loss.

Bertie standing guard while Stoney rests

At the moment he is very interested in eating and when I came home today he came trotting over when I entered the paddock and he enjoyed a lovely scratch on his whither. At dinner time he also came trotting up from where he was eating to get his hard feed so he appears to be in good spirits. He has been having fun rolling once or twice a day and enjoying grazing with Stoney his paddock mate.

Stoney and Bertie enjoying a rest ( risk of lions, tigers and bears at an all time low)

Stoney and Bertie enjoying the sunshine naked.

Amber at the vets

As some of you may know, my beloved horse Bertie has had an on going problem with his nose. About 6 - 8 weeks ago and there was some bleeding from the off side (his right hand side) of his nose which caused me initially to take him to the vets.
Here he was scoped (Endoscope info for those interested ) to look inside. While there was nothing obvious or any bleeding at the time and while the ethmoids (what is an Ethmoid?) on the off side (his right hand side) looked a little irritated but not bleeding , we decided to just keep an eye on things at home.
The following week, 2 lumps appeared on the offside of his nose so an appointment was made to return to the vet. The morning before the vet we had the dentist out ( purely a coincidence it landed on the same day) who confirmed what I had detected the previous day, a fowl smell coming from the off side of the nose. This is a likely indication of the tooth abscess which the vet also said was a possibility as it that is what it smelt like.  What was also a concern is that very little air flow was coming out of that nostril, meaning that he was only breathing though one nostril since horses do not breath with there mouths.
  At the vets we decided to take x-rays to give us an indication of what might be going on inside.
  Suspect teeth are 107-108 which are directly under where the swelling is on his nose.

If you look at the chart you can see Right Upper Left are the Premolars where 107& 108 are.

At this point antibiotics and  anti-inflammatory drugs were commenced.
Anyway, I will try to get the the point as this is getting rather long.

He was scoped again and the mass had become so large that the camera could not enter very far on the offside. It is here we are beginning to think that there is more going on than just a tooth abscess as the bleeding is very unusual for a tooth abscess.
A biopsy was taken of the smaller mass and sent to pathology.
Here we hoped it would give us some answers. 7 days later the results are inconclusive stating that the tissue was necrotic ( dead) and inflamed.
We decide that we need a specialist as this is getting rather involved and complicated.

Bertie being examined by the specialist dentist

 13 days later ( which felt like a life time) we finally get to see the specialist ( which was today!)
.During the consultation 109 is found to be loose as well as 108 while 107 is very abnormal and happened to be the tooth directly under the mass.

 Bertie getting x-rays done

More x-rays were taken and he had marked differences in these x-rays from the ones previous, being that the mass is larger and softer than before.

The specialist confirms that he suspects that there is something else going on as well as an abscess and removing the tooth may or may not reduce the mass and a biopsy of the larger mass is required.

Bertie getting 107 tooth extracted

So the tooth is extracted ( and I got to take it home too, Mum almost fainted when she saw it, imagine what might have happened if I had not cleaned it up first!)
And while we had him doped up and in the crush, we decided to take a biopsy of the large mass and would be sent off to pathology today.

Berties face after the biopsy was taken from the large mass.

You can see here the size of the mass.

This was followed with discussions about if the mass is a cyst, or a tumour or ??????.

Long story short, the problem with the teeth is the RESULT of the mass not the cause.
The softening of the mass is due to the bone wall being ruptured and the pressure releasing from the outside inward. Some of the teeth are loose as there is less bone for the teeth to hold into due to the tumor / mass eating away at the bone.

So with great sadness I have to say Berties competition days are over since he cannot breath properly with only one nostril and he is clearly uncomfortable having a big tooth ach and the mass pressing on his orbital nerve .

Biopsy results are due Friday.


Wish us luck, please send money...

-Amber


p.s any one want to see a photo of the tooth???

My good deed for the day!

Driving home today I saw a golden Labrador running down the road. No one else around, I figured he might be from one of the houses near by, and driving past him I thought he looked worried ( don't ask me to describe how a dog looks worried)  so I continued driving past him and looking out my rear view mirror I saw him running towards a busy road where the speed limit is set at 100kmph and something inside me made me stop and I do a U turn. I drove back and I managed to approach the dog and put him on my leash.

Thankfully he was friendly and on his collar was a mobile number which I called and to my relief someone answered and was only too happy to come and pick him up. Apparently he goes for a wander quite often and enjoys a dip in the creek near by where I found him.

This was my good deed for the day!