Chronic affliction blows crone’s lobe

By the shaking jumping ghost of Jehosaphat (by which oath crones occasionally swear when they’ve already yagged out “god fucking dammit to hell are you fucking kidding me” about 67 times and are then inclined toward a brief, restful phase of ironic 19th-century folksiness), I tell you I can’t stand it another minute. By gum.

I allude, of course, to the chestnut mare Ginger Rogers and her absurd propensity for mysterious lumpages and repellent edemas. Journey with me now, back through the mists of time, to the dreadful day a couple of weeks ago when Ginger Rogers presented with giant, leaking, crusty umbilical pus-bags. Recall that her epidermis was riddled with lumps the size of grape tomatoes, some of which had ruptured to emit that yellow crust that looks like raw sugar. I appealed to the CoTH forum and even to a couple of veterinarians for advice. From the forum I got sympathy — which was nice — and from the vet, in lieu of a diagnosis, I got a 5-day course of dex, some Dermalone ointment, and an expensive lab test for pigeon fever that eventually came back negative and/or inconclusive.

And so my desperate struggle began. Twice a day, every day, whether it was windy, or chilly, or even partly cloudy, I fought my way to the paddock with my little first aid pail. I sponged off the crust, applied Betadine and Dermalone, administered apples spiked with dex tablets, and fretted feebly, wiping a tear from my jaundiced eye. A more pitifuler tableau you never saw.

I forgot my latex gloves a couple of times, so stay tuned for the post where I complain about getting laminitis from the steroids.

Anyway, knock me over with a feather, Ginger Rogers’ condition cleared right up. To celebrate we hoisted cups of wassail on the Lido deck and played air drums to Led Zeppelin IV long into the night. We all thought her hideous disfigurement was a thing of the past.

Well, we couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s as if the affliction, stunned only momentarily by my steroidal offensive and inspired by the oath-taking Crones of Cottonmouth County, has raised itself up, shaken its fist at the sky, and sworn by Grabthar’s hammer and the suns of Minivan that it will be avenged. It’s even more gruesome than before. Ginger Rogers’ embattled ventral midline looks like supersized, hairy, weeping cottage cheese, and over the rest of her body, including her face and ears, festers a superabundance of those horrific oozing boils. Her epidermis is like unto a miniature primordial volcanoscape. It is most gross.

Currently I await the phone call from the vet. In all likelihood she’ll tell me to bring the horse back in, so I’d better go out and begin the 3-hour process of hooking up the horse trailer. My mental preparations for the white-knuckle ordeal of solo horse hauling consist of ingesting a couple of Ativans.

So, that’s about it. I don’t really have anything else. Possibly you think that this blog should serve a loftier purpose than that of a self-indulgent chronicle of my petty daily vexulations. I guess you’re probably right.