Surgery

Surgery.

It's where you get to feel like a God, and it's a high like no other. When they show those scenes on medical dramas, with people standing in this almost silent room, watching as someone mends something that was otherwise irreparable, they're giving you a glimpse into another world.

When I step into surgery, my entire mindset changes. Getting a horse on the ground is the easy part, but after that, the adrenaline starts pumping. Intubate, get the horse on the table, clip the surgery site, scrub, wipe clean, tie the doctors in....it's a rush that I can't really describe.

There is this moment, when everything is done, that you breathe. You hear the beeping of the heart monitor, the soft woosh of a respiration, and then it begins.

"Cutting, Anesthesia."

With those two simple words, things are fixed. Wrongs are righted. An animal that came to us with an illness will leave healed and whole again. It's satisfying and perfect to exist in this timeless little world, where everything is smooth and easy, and even when it isn't it'll still all turn out OK. It's simplistic.

Then last night happened, and my view of surgery as somewhat of a safe haven was forever shaken.

One of our clients called us in a panic. Her horse had gone down and seized, and she was rushing him to us. When she got there, the horse was soaked and sweat and looked pained and frightened. We immediately did blood work, and found something that strikes fear into any vet: signs pointing towards a ruptured bowel. We tubed the horse and did an ab tap. In the ab tap we got one single drop of blood, but it was a deadly drop: it had sand in it.

His bowel had ruptured.

This is a death sentence for a horse. There is a literally 0% chance that a horse can survive their bowel rupturing. However, the owner wanted surgery. Now. So at 5PM, when the day should be over, myself and one of our doctors flew through surgery, preparing it and getting the horse under anesthesia by 5:30.

Logically, we all knew going into this that the horse would be dead on the table. Logically.

As a sobbing owner watched through our viewing window, our head doctor made a small incision in the horse's abdomen. A putrid odor came out, as did feces and blood. I went and told the owner, but she demanded we continue cutting, so we did. We opened him fully, and pulled out completely dead intestine, coated in chunks of feces and reeking of decay. Blood poured over the floor, literally gallons of it. At that point, our head doctor took off his gown and refused to go further. I got the euthanasia solution and we euthanized, with the owner's face pressed to the window as she cried.

It was heart wrenching in every possible way. But I was OK with it, because I thought I had dealt with it. But I hadn't. We wheeled the horse to the back of our hospital, and dragged his body away with a truck. I rinsed away the blood, forgetting the lingering stench and going home.

I couldn't sleep once I got into bed. My mind kept flashing to the dark red bowels, the green chunks of feces sitting on them and the occasional oat clinging to a crevasse. And worse, my mind kept flashing to us leaving his body at the back of the hospital, and not in the recovery room where he would wake up, alive and healthy.

I guess at some point we all have a moment that shakes our perfect little worlds, and this was it for me.

No doctor can cure everything, and surgery can't save every horse. But we do the best we can. We try, and we succeed more than we fail, and in that we can find our victory. If we can help a hundred but lose one in the process, it does not mean that it could've been helped. It means that we helped a hundred horses, and God took one of them.

God has blessed us with the one hundred.

Death

There is little room in this job to get philosophical about things. And there's always the danger that if you do, your heart will break.

Some weeks are more full of death than others. Just when you feel like you've had a week of success, it's like God himself looks down and decides to remind you not only of the fragility of life, but of the limits of your abilities. Some cases you can't save, no matter what you do. It's a part of this job that you have to accept and embrace.

Death came storming through this week, and it had a vengeance. In a week and a half, we had six horses euthanized, and another that is on the schedule.

I sometimes wonder how horses would feel if they could see our schedule and see that their death is there, in print, destined to be carried out at 11:00 or 2:30, at the hospital or at the farm. I wonder what they would think if they knew how we picked our doctors to do the euthanasia, or that when we're told it's happening we just continue on with our day, death barely a blip on our radar.

This week we had a particular case that bothered me. A doctor and I went to see a 35 year old gelding who was reported to be colicing. When we arrived, the horse had a heart rate of 60 (normal is ~40) and was clearly bloated. Upon palpation, our doctor discovered completely dry feces filled with acorns, and felt several large and rock solid impactions.

The horse's fate was sealed at that moment.

I couldn't help but imagine this gelding's life. He was a pony, with one ear flopping listlessly to the side and fur matted with sweat and dirt. How many children had ridden him? How many carrots had he eaten, or kisses on the nose had he received? Was he loved? Was he used? What did he think of these strangers now at this point in his life, when he was alone and in pain, prodding and poking and bothering him? But most of all...

Did he know that someone was hurting for him right then?

Death can be ugly and death can be beautiful. There are two sides to the coin. When I see a horse in pain gently slump to the ground, and I know that their pain is over, I see the beauty in it. I see the beauty in holding them in their final moments, and letting them know that even if it is only in that moment, they are loved.

Once a spirit leaves a body, there is no more beauty in life passing on to something greater and better. The smell of death seeps into your very heart, and sometimes I'm convinced I smell it even after I've been home for hours and showered. Every death leaves a stamp on your heart that you'll never forget. I know the name of every single horse that has died in my arms - all 5 of them. So here's to my friends who have taught me lessons I will never forget. And here's to Death, for it is truly the great equalizer.

Buddy.
Poppi.
Helga.
Dusty.
Jett.

Trailer Tales

For many people, trailering horses is a harrowing experience. From a vet tech's point of view, it's just another part of the job. Getting horses on and off of trailers is a daily occurrence at an equine hospital. Some horses are more than willing, but most are not. We have plenty of horses at the hospital, and with the chill in the air and the excitement of being someplace new, you're just adding to the difficulty that comes with trailers.

Today, we had a very unique experience with a trailer. Seeing what I see with trailers, I would advise people not to load horses unless they're standing in the immediate vicinity (within ten feet, really, close enough to scramble back) or they're a few minutes from pulling out. Some people don't really take this under advisement, and while this incident is rare, these things happen.

A client brought in two Paso Fino horses to be examined. When the mare was done with her tests, the client loaded her on to the trailer and brought her gelding out. Her gelding needed X-Rays and an Ultrasound, both of which would take about an hour combined. Myself, the client, and our head doctor were in X-Ray doing the ultrasound when our receptionist came in.

"We need you." was all she said to our doctor, and they both left. The receptionist returned a moment later, and explained to the client what was going on.

Her mare was halfway out of her trailer, but not through the loading end. Through the window. I immediately tied the gelding up and we all scrambled outside to try and help. The mare was hanging out of the window and thrashing, which made it difficult for our other doctor to get to her and sedate her. After much ado, we managed to sedate her enough to begin the process of getting her out. And that's when the client began with something that burned my ears to hear.

In order to save her trailer, she was pushing us to euthanize the mare. I fully realize that trailers are incredibly expensive, and that people work very hard to own them. But at the same time, I believe an inanimate object - of any kind - is worth far less than a living, breathing animal.

The mare was sedated enough to slide back to the inside (with much pulling and pushing), but the client's response lingered in my mind. Kill a horse for a trailer, when you're the irresponsible one for leaving her there?

There are some things in this business that will always linger with me, and the sight of a dead horse/the sight of euthanizing a horse will be one of those things. I understand the need for it, and I've had patients that I've ached to euthanize in order to end their suffering. But this mare was healthy except for this predicament. I'll never understand this client's compulsion to kill her horse for her trailer.

I urge you all to please practice responsible trailering. Use common sense and don't leave your animals unattended in a trailer.