Instinct and Advice?

A few years back when I still had Sofia, she was about a 2 year old and had kicked through the lean-to. I had gotten up in the morning to feed to find this awful injury on Sofia. Her left rear hoof was cut to the bone right along the coronary band. Of coarse this was a weekend in muddy cold March so I call the vet and out she came. I made a small pen from training pen panels on the grass rather than mud, put Sofia in there and hosed off the wound. We sedated her , cleaned it thoroughly and wrapped it in a soft cast and gave antibiotics. Now Sofia was a free horse that came with her mother which I had purchased. She was nearly a year old when I got and still hadn't been weaned nor handled. Never imprinted. She'd given me my share of bruises, so even though we gotten pretty far with ground manners we still had a fair way to go so she wasn't easy to handle and the vets did not like her. When the vet suggested that I take her to a perfusionist to the tune of about 5 grand, I opted out. Not that I would ever suggest to anyone not to follow a vet's advice but 5 grand on an unpapered free horse with no guarantee is kind of steep. I conferred with Jess who has more horse experience than I.
So the vet came out two more times to redress this wound and not without sedation mind you and then left it up to me because they were tired of coming out here or maybe pissed because I wouldn't send her to the perfusionist? I don't know for sure. Anyway, I ended up calling my farrier for help with it, because I alone couldn't get near her feet. Jeremiah came out right away and helped me unwrap this wound which had been abandoned for three days now. Now I had an alternative plan. I cleared my garage and layed four large rubber mats down on the floor and used those panels to create a stall, no shavings just rubber. Every morning and evening for about a month I hosed the wound down and the stall and then squirted betadine from a distance so as not to get kicked on the wound and gave her oral penicillin with her grain. I was so proud of myself and Sofia. Not one lame day, not one ounce of proud flesh and once healed no evidence of ever having had a wound, barely a ripple in the hoof line as it grew out. And a more bonded horse. I trusted my nursing instinct when others gave up and was very grateful to Jeremiah and Jess who always comes through for me.