Recovery

Christina is up and eating!  It's a beautiful, wonderful thing.  She's not out of the woods yet, but things look really good.  She tried four times before she finally got to her feet.  Those legs were wiggly and wobbly.  She stood still for quite a while and then took her first shaky steps.  She went right over to her baby and then promptly to the food.  She hasn't eaten in over a day and we are so relieved.

It's been a long day.  After that first bottle of calcium this morning, she still wasn't getting up and her temperature stayed low.  At 12:30pm we gave her another bottle of calcium under her skin.  While we were waiting for the solution to drain into her, I took her temperature again and it was just beginning to come up.

An hour later we took her temperature; it was coming up but she still looked awful.  After a bit she picked up her head and kept it up, looking around.  We expected her to get up soon, but by 3:30pm she was still down.  We talked to another vet and she recommended that we roll her over (yeah, she actually told us to roll over a thousand pound cow).  She said that the side she was laying on would be really sore and falling asleep.  Five of us pushed with everything we had.  Finally, on the sixth try she went over.  We brought her calf over and she even tried to get up.  Her legs shook hard and she went back down.  After several more tries, she finally got her back legs under her and straightened up in slow motion. 

Jerky hasn't had much attention today.  He's gotten some milk in the bottle, but was shivering.  We got out an old coat to wrap around him and set up a heat lamp.  We have him in the milk area so Christina can't fall on him but close enough that they can touch noses.

Tonight we'll keep an eye on Christina to make sure she doesn't go back down.  Tomorrow, her due date, we'll do our first real milking and, God willing, will begin normal, mundane milking.

Thank you for all the prayers.  God has answered them and saved our cow.  I think I'll be able to sleep tonight.