She's All Better Now

She's all better now...

4/16/2018

Three weeks ago, the boys went out to do evening chores and found a new heifer calf.

Raylee is happy and healthy...but she had one problem.

Raylee is not a bull...she just has an umbilical hernia.

An umbilical hernia is caused when the blood vessels in the umbilical cord do not shrink as much as they should after birth. It really isn't a big deal, it just looks bad.

We don't normally worry too much about hernia's, but Raylee's was larger than normal.

Since there is a really good possibility that she will be in the show ring, we wanted to go ahead and get the hernia taken care of.

Since she is so young, the Dr. Rob wanted to use gas for the surgery, so we had to take her into the vet's office instead of having the surgery done here at home.

I was the bad Mom because I made Isaac and Walker go to school instead of letting them ride along with Dad for Raylee's surgery.

Some people may think it is weird for all of us to be so enthralled with cow surgeries, but you have to remember that Isaac was just seven years old when Dr. Rob had him help stitch up Missy after her C-section. It was a case of needing every set of hands to keep mamma and baby alive. No one had the choice to be grossed out...we all just had to jump in and do what needed done. Ever since then, the boys have been all too curious to see anything the vet does.

We sent Daniel to the vet's office with orders to take lots of pictures.

Raylee was the star of the vet's office. Everyone was in love with her and was more than happy to get to be a part of her surgery.

The vet tech's started by clipping the hair around the hernia.

Then it was Dr. Rob's turn to fix the hernia.

He made an incision, tucked everything back into place and then stitched her back up.

All fixed!

Raylee was still a little groggy...but all better and ready to go home.

I love the tongue!

Raylee is back home and doing well. She has to stay in the barn until we take the stitches out in two weeks.

Her belly is still swollen, but it will go down as it continues to heal.

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