Charlie's Sarcoid Removal

Charlie has had a sarcoid on his face for a long time now.  The mil vets tried to treat it by surgically removing part of it and treating the rest of it with a type of cream that kills the cancer cells.  However, after several months, it was obvious that the treatment had not worked and had, in fact, made it worse.  An ugly cauliflower-like growth appeared on the right side of Charlie's face making him essentially unusable for ceremonial work. 

Last Thursday we received approval from the mil vets to take Charlie up to Arizona Equine for treatment.  AZ Equine provides the best horse care you can get in this state and we frequently take the Army horses up there for treatment.  Our mil vets are good, but AZ Equine deals exclusively with horse issues on a daily basis and sometimes you just have to go with the experts, even though it is much more expensive. 

Charlie at home after the surgery

Charlie was moved into the operating area stocks as soon as we arrived, sedated, and prepped for surgery.  Once Charlie was sedated, the surgeon made a circular incision all the way around the sarcoid on Charlie's cheek.  What happened next was like a scene from "Silence of the Lambs."  They peeled back the flap of skin and snipped it loose from the underlying tissue with a scissors.  It was like watching someone getting scalped in slow motion.  Once they removed the "scalp," they cut some of the suspicious looking areas from the sub-dermal layer.  It was pretty grotesque, but fascinating at the same time.  Charlie pretty much dozed through the whole thing with his chin resting on a specially designed horse-head prop. 

After they had finished, the wrapped his head up in bandages and then Debbie put on his Mexican-wrestler hoodie to help keep the bandages in place.  It will take a couple months for the skin to grow back and Charlie will always have a bald spot on his cheek.  The bald spot will mostly be covered by his ceremonial tack, so he shouldn't look to unsightly as long as the sarcoid doesn't come back.