Sky presented as an emergency after being kicked by a cow, she had significant, life-threatening injuries; including a flail chest and pneumothorax.
A flail chest is when a section of the ribs break and then becomes detached from the rest of the chest wall. It causes significant difficulties with breathing and is extremely painful. The broken section of the ribs moves inward when the rest of the chest moves outward, and vice versa. This is known as paradoxical breathing.
Sky also suffered from a pneumothorax- this is where the chest cavity is full of air around the lungs, which decreases the lungs ability to fill with air, making breathing very difficult.
Sky was extremely unwell and received 24-hour round-the-clock intensive nursing care. We placed a chest drain so that any air and fluid that accumulated in the chest was removed. Sky was on multiple medications, oxygen therapy, and constant rate infusions of pain-relieving drugs for quite some time.
We also placed a feeding tube directly into her oesophagus to enable us to give her nutrition in the form of liquid food. Correct nutrition is vital, especially when recovering from such significant injuries and illness. Sky had a long road to recovery and spent 8 days hospitalised with us. She has made a tremendous recovery, and we are pleased that she was eventually able to go home to continue her rest and recuperation after such severe life-threatening injuries.
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