My Horse Colicked Today
I was awakened by the telephone ringing this morning at 8:50am, after only 2 hours sleep. When I saw the name on the caller ID, I nearly panicked. It was the woman who feeds the horses in the morning, and she knows I work at night, so for her to call me, I knew something had to be wrong. I answered the phone quickly.
"Kobeejo is not feeling well," she started. "He won't eat his breakfast (not like him) and he keeps laying down repeatedly."
"I'll be right there," I said quickly.
Kobeejo, my 27-year-old registered grey overo Paint/Pinto, is more to me than just a horse. 16 years ago, he saved my life and he's been my life-saving grace ever since. He's also my registered therapy horse, as I have autism. This horse is the blood that runs through my veins and I have always done everything I can to take the best care of him, give him the best (and correct amount and type) of food (24/7 forage, a ration balancer and alfalfa pellets soaked). We have been through our share of trials and triumphs. He was diagnosed with insulin resistance when he was only 14 years old and Cushings at 21. He has been through laminitis and founder and with diligent care and good vets, he's pulled through. But Colic I didn't expect. Ironically, it has always been one of my biggest fears... esp the type of colic he had.
Two years ago, a horse (Luke) at the barn where I board Kobeejo came down with a bad case of colic. I will never forget how uncomfortable that horse was... and the news was dire. A benign tumor called a lipoma had wrapped around the horse's intestines, cutting off the blood flow. The horse was in incredible pain and refused to get up. Upon exam, the vet realized he had this lipoma, which had most likely killed parts of his intestines. Her recommendation was to put him down. The owner agreed and the horse was euthanized while we all watched in horror.
Lipoma's occur in older horses, but don't always cause problems. Yet, sometimes they do... and the symptoms come on fast! This has been on my mind since that day.
I arrived at the barn 15 minutes later, at about 9:05am. One of the boarders, Dave, was walking Kobeejo around the indoor arena. The horses had been in for 2 days due to heavy rains. Looking at his stall, I could see he had been up and down quite a bit as the shavings were all pushed to the sides of the stall, which is rare for Kobeejo. I tried calling my vet at 9:02am, but he was away, so I left a message. I called a previous vet I had once used, but they were short-staffed. I had one other option... a vet who is often called when my vet is not available. He called me back within 30 minutes. As it turned out, he was heading to the barn anyway for a different client, whose horse had lameness issues.
At some point, as KJ was being walked, someone (my mind was in a tizzy so I don't recall who) asked me, "At his age, if he needs surgery, would you do it?" My immediate reply, "YES!!!" Age is just a number. As long as a horse is properly cared for with the correct diet, exercise, etc. and stay in good shape, they should be able to survive surgery. Plus, I would not give up on him unless I knew for fact it was hopeless and he'd suffer too much.
As I have arthritis in my back, I can't walk much, so I cleaned Kobee's stall to get an idea of how much he had eaten and pooped. Mostly, it was normal. So, I knew this had come on just recently. A friend who had shown up at the barn at 5am said he was fine then. By 8:15am, however, he wasn't.
The first thing I did was grab the stethoscope I keep on my stall and listened for gut sounds. I heard none. Not a good sign. He passed a tiny bit of manure, but not his usual pile. I checked his gums and they were pale, though their blood refill time was good. His heart rate was good. But he was breathing a bit hard, due to pain. I gave him some Banamine.
The vet showed up at 10:30am and went to work on Kobeejo. He did the same as me and checked his vitals (plus temperature, I didn't have a thermometer and wasn't really thinking straight at this point). But the vet checked everything and his temperature was normal. He concurred with me on all others: no gut sounds, pale gums. Something was preventing his manure from passing normally through his intestines. Again, Luke came into my mind and my hands began to shake. My stomach hurt badly. My heartbeat was fast with fear.
The vet reached his hand inside from the rear and came out with small amounts of manure, and noticed his intestine was enlarged... a sign something was wrong in there. He wasn't sure if he had an impaction or what, so he tubed him (placed a tube through one nostril and down his throat into his stomach). He put water in and let water run out (horses cannot vomit, so this is a way of telling if something in the stomach needs to be expelled), but came up naught.
The day before, Kobeejo had a fist-sized rock-hard ball of chewed hay stuck in the left side of his cheek, which I removed by hand, then with the aid of a friend, flushed his mouth. His dentist was scheduled to come today, so I called and canceled and told him what was going on. The vet checked his mouth, but found nothing alarming except one cracked tooth. He didn't think the two had anything to do with one another.
After he had sedated him and done his exams, he had me take all food and hay out of his stall and put him in to see how he would do while he went to work on the horse he had come there for originally. While he was doing that, Kobeejo laid down in his stall, but his head was still up. I walked away for a bit, but when I came back, he was flat out. Not normal at all. I waved a horse cookie in his face, but he didn't care. Since the vet was still there, I went and told him. He said to get him up and walk him, which I did.
As I had not yet taken my pain medications, my body and esp my back were on fire. But I was not going to stop walking him. Occasionally, he'd put his head down as if he wanted to go down, but I made him keep going. By the time the vet was done with the horse, he came back, along with the owner of the other horse who is new to the barn, yet I'd become friends with the owner. She took over walking him for me. I was beyond grateful.
In the meantime, my vet had called back at 10:20am to give me the name of other vets, but I told him Dr. Weber was there.
Since the Banamine and all else was not working, he told me to "start making arrangements to get him to Tufts Veterinary Clinic (an hour away in N. Grafton, MA), which is a veterinary school and has awesome vets. He was quite adamant that I get him up there ASAP. Being on disability, I couldn't help but worry about the money, but I also could not let that stop me. I would find a way.
I phoned one of the barn owners at 11:47am and left a message, then called the other (sisters own the barn). I knew they had a trailer. The second called me shortly after noon. She was coming with the truck and her sister, who lives on the property, would get the trailer ready. By 1pm the trailer was ready. Dr. Weber stayed the whole time and gave Kobeejo a tranquilizer for the trip even though, as a retired show horse, KJ loves to get on trailers. And he did... though he was walking funny from the drugs, he followed me, as he always has, right onto the trailer.
It took an hour in pouring rain to get there. By the time we arrived, the rain had stopped. I backed Kobeejo out of the trailer and we walked down to where it said "Large Animal Hospital." We were met at the door. I led Kobeejo into a big room with loads of state-of-the-art equipment and about half dozen people. There were two vets, aids and several interns. They got to work immediately.
They redid all the tests, then ultra-sounded his intestines, confirming they were enlarged. They tubed him again before placing him in stocks so they could get him ready to go into a medical stall. While I watched, several horse friends called me, but I was too upset to talk. I had the two barn owners with me and they were like my rocks just with their presence.
The whole time we were watching them work on him, I kept hearing "Are you sure this horse is 27??" I said, "Yes, I have his papers."
"Wow, he's in amazing shape!"
I had to go out to the reception desk to sign papers and pay an amount of money I did not have. They took Care Credit, but mine was full due to several surgeries on cats and work on a cat I had had that developed brain cancer. Unfortunately, my cat didn't make it, but we still need to pay on the bills. I called my mom. She had an emergency credit, so was able to pay a portion over the phone. Then, using the hospital's computer, I paid the rest between mine and my mom's Care Credit, filling them.
During this, the vet came out to inform me they had to do surgery! There was something major going on inside and they could only determine what to do by opening him up.
Once that was taken care of (a very stressful endeavor when one is poor yet NEEDS to assure that special baby gets everything he needs), they took me to his stall to see him. He was standing in the massive and sterile stall unmoving. IV's were planted in his neck and he had a tube in his nose with a muzzle on so he wouldn't bump the tube.
I hugged him, told him I loved him through my tears. I kissed his face and when I pulled back, I noticed, though he had not moved, he shifted his eye to look directly at me. He was grateful I was there. But I had to leave. We left about 6:15pm and the vet promised to call once they had an answer.
We went back to the barn, and I had to go in to get something. When I saw Kobee's empty stall, I broke down. I grabbed what I needed and went home. At this point I had had only 2 hours' sleep in 24 hours and had eaten nothing. My stomach was in knots.
I attempted to eat a half bowl of soup but it didn't stay in me long due to my nerves. I felt so pained and ill and my heart was racing again. I knew my beloved was in surgery and I just kept repeating "please be ok, please."
I kept busy by answering the hundreds of messages I received from horse friends who heard what happened. My cat, Lucy, whom I hand-raised since she was 10 days old would not leave me alone; she rubbed on me, climbed on me, purred loudly and did all she could to make me feel better.
At 7:45pm the phone rang... it was the vet. She informed me Kobeejo had a lipoma that had wrapped around a small portion of intestine... the same thing Luke had died from, but she praised me for getting Kobeejo in so quickly. No intestine had been badly damaged and they removed the lipoma. She informed me Kobeejo was still in surgery and the surgeon was going through all of his intestines to be sure everything was "alive." She said the surgeon would call me when done with the surgery.
Waiting is so difficult!
About 10pm I laid down and Lucy laid on my chest with her face against mine, purring loudly. About 10:30pm, the phone rang. It was the surgeon. Kobeejo came through the surgery well and all his intestines seemed good. He was still asleep in the recovery stall... on a mattress. She said she would call again once he woke up and was on his feet.
More waiting. My mind kept going to race horse Ruffian, who had broken a leg in a race in the '70s (which I had seen when I was a kid). She had thrashed so much waking from surgery, she broke another leg and had to be put down. I was once again a total wreck. The surgeon told me it might take 1 - 1.5 hours before he was awake.
I watched the clock. An hour went by, then 2 hours. I was freaking out. But, at 12:42am (Valentine's Day), the phone rang. I grabbed it up so fast, Lucy fell off me. Kobeejo was awake and back in his "regular" stall. They would need to do a lavage (emptying, basically) of his stomach to be sure he had no food in there, then he would be left to rest with IV, antibiotics and other meds he needed. She said someone would call in the morning and for me to get some rest.
It is now 3:30am. I needed to get all this out, so I have been sitting here writing, which is what I do... I am a writer. Tomorrow (or rather a bit later in the morning today), hope beyond hope, it's good news. I'm hoping I can get some sleep. I'm so frightened of the phone ringing with bad news. But I shouldn't think that way. Though he is 27, Kobeejo is a fighter, and great care has kept him strong and healthy. He is the blood that runs through my veins and I am his. We are soulmates.
"Kobeejo is not feeling well," she started. "He won't eat his breakfast (not like him) and he keeps laying down repeatedly."
"I'll be right there," I said quickly.
Kobeejo, my 27-year-old registered grey overo Paint/Pinto, is more to me than just a horse. 16 years ago, he saved my life and he's been my life-saving grace ever since. He's also my registered therapy horse, as I have autism. This horse is the blood that runs through my veins and I have always done everything I can to take the best care of him, give him the best (and correct amount and type) of food (24/7 forage, a ration balancer and alfalfa pellets soaked). We have been through our share of trials and triumphs. He was diagnosed with insulin resistance when he was only 14 years old and Cushings at 21. He has been through laminitis and founder and with diligent care and good vets, he's pulled through. But Colic I didn't expect. Ironically, it has always been one of my biggest fears... esp the type of colic he had.
Two years ago, a horse (Luke) at the barn where I board Kobeejo came down with a bad case of colic. I will never forget how uncomfortable that horse was... and the news was dire. A benign tumor called a lipoma had wrapped around the horse's intestines, cutting off the blood flow. The horse was in incredible pain and refused to get up. Upon exam, the vet realized he had this lipoma, which had most likely killed parts of his intestines. Her recommendation was to put him down. The owner agreed and the horse was euthanized while we all watched in horror.
Lipoma's occur in older horses, but don't always cause problems. Yet, sometimes they do... and the symptoms come on fast! This has been on my mind since that day.
I arrived at the barn 15 minutes later, at about 9:05am. One of the boarders, Dave, was walking Kobeejo around the indoor arena. The horses had been in for 2 days due to heavy rains. Looking at his stall, I could see he had been up and down quite a bit as the shavings were all pushed to the sides of the stall, which is rare for Kobeejo. I tried calling my vet at 9:02am, but he was away, so I left a message. I called a previous vet I had once used, but they were short-staffed. I had one other option... a vet who is often called when my vet is not available. He called me back within 30 minutes. As it turned out, he was heading to the barn anyway for a different client, whose horse had lameness issues.
At some point, as KJ was being walked, someone (my mind was in a tizzy so I don't recall who) asked me, "At his age, if he needs surgery, would you do it?" My immediate reply, "YES!!!" Age is just a number. As long as a horse is properly cared for with the correct diet, exercise, etc. and stay in good shape, they should be able to survive surgery. Plus, I would not give up on him unless I knew for fact it was hopeless and he'd suffer too much.
As I have arthritis in my back, I can't walk much, so I cleaned Kobee's stall to get an idea of how much he had eaten and pooped. Mostly, it was normal. So, I knew this had come on just recently. A friend who had shown up at the barn at 5am said he was fine then. By 8:15am, however, he wasn't.
The first thing I did was grab the stethoscope I keep on my stall and listened for gut sounds. I heard none. Not a good sign. He passed a tiny bit of manure, but not his usual pile. I checked his gums and they were pale, though their blood refill time was good. His heart rate was good. But he was breathing a bit hard, due to pain. I gave him some Banamine.
The vet showed up at 10:30am and went to work on Kobeejo. He did the same as me and checked his vitals (plus temperature, I didn't have a thermometer and wasn't really thinking straight at this point). But the vet checked everything and his temperature was normal. He concurred with me on all others: no gut sounds, pale gums. Something was preventing his manure from passing normally through his intestines. Again, Luke came into my mind and my hands began to shake. My stomach hurt badly. My heartbeat was fast with fear.
The vet reached his hand inside from the rear and came out with small amounts of manure, and noticed his intestine was enlarged... a sign something was wrong in there. He wasn't sure if he had an impaction or what, so he tubed him (placed a tube through one nostril and down his throat into his stomach). He put water in and let water run out (horses cannot vomit, so this is a way of telling if something in the stomach needs to be expelled), but came up naught.
The day before, Kobeejo had a fist-sized rock-hard ball of chewed hay stuck in the left side of his cheek, which I removed by hand, then with the aid of a friend, flushed his mouth. His dentist was scheduled to come today, so I called and canceled and told him what was going on. The vet checked his mouth, but found nothing alarming except one cracked tooth. He didn't think the two had anything to do with one another.
After he had sedated him and done his exams, he had me take all food and hay out of his stall and put him in to see how he would do while he went to work on the horse he had come there for originally. While he was doing that, Kobeejo laid down in his stall, but his head was still up. I walked away for a bit, but when I came back, he was flat out. Not normal at all. I waved a horse cookie in his face, but he didn't care. Since the vet was still there, I went and told him. He said to get him up and walk him, which I did.
As I had not yet taken my pain medications, my body and esp my back were on fire. But I was not going to stop walking him. Occasionally, he'd put his head down as if he wanted to go down, but I made him keep going. By the time the vet was done with the horse, he came back, along with the owner of the other horse who is new to the barn, yet I'd become friends with the owner. She took over walking him for me. I was beyond grateful.
In the meantime, my vet had called back at 10:20am to give me the name of other vets, but I told him Dr. Weber was there.
Since the Banamine and all else was not working, he told me to "start making arrangements to get him to Tufts Veterinary Clinic (an hour away in N. Grafton, MA), which is a veterinary school and has awesome vets. He was quite adamant that I get him up there ASAP. Being on disability, I couldn't help but worry about the money, but I also could not let that stop me. I would find a way.
I phoned one of the barn owners at 11:47am and left a message, then called the other (sisters own the barn). I knew they had a trailer. The second called me shortly after noon. She was coming with the truck and her sister, who lives on the property, would get the trailer ready. By 1pm the trailer was ready. Dr. Weber stayed the whole time and gave Kobeejo a tranquilizer for the trip even though, as a retired show horse, KJ loves to get on trailers. And he did... though he was walking funny from the drugs, he followed me, as he always has, right onto the trailer.
It took an hour in pouring rain to get there. By the time we arrived, the rain had stopped. I backed Kobeejo out of the trailer and we walked down to where it said "Large Animal Hospital." We were met at the door. I led Kobeejo into a big room with loads of state-of-the-art equipment and about half dozen people. There were two vets, aids and several interns. They got to work immediately.
 |
| The vet checks Kobeejo's vitals |
They redid all the tests, then ultra-sounded his intestines, confirming they were enlarged. They tubed him again before placing him in stocks so they could get him ready to go into a medical stall. While I watched, several horse friends called me, but I was too upset to talk. I had the two barn owners with me and they were like my rocks just with their presence.
The whole time we were watching them work on him, I kept hearing "Are you sure this horse is 27??" I said, "Yes, I have his papers."
"Wow, he's in amazing shape!"
I had to go out to the reception desk to sign papers and pay an amount of money I did not have. They took Care Credit, but mine was full due to several surgeries on cats and work on a cat I had had that developed brain cancer. Unfortunately, my cat didn't make it, but we still need to pay on the bills. I called my mom. She had an emergency credit, so was able to pay a portion over the phone. Then, using the hospital's computer, I paid the rest between mine and my mom's Care Credit, filling them.
 |
| The vet ultra-sounds his intestines and finds them enlarged |
During this, the vet came out to inform me they had to do surgery! There was something major going on inside and they could only determine what to do by opening him up.
Once that was taken care of (a very stressful endeavor when one is poor yet NEEDS to assure that special baby gets everything he needs), they took me to his stall to see him. He was standing in the massive and sterile stall unmoving. IV's were planted in his neck and he had a tube in his nose with a muzzle on so he wouldn't bump the tube.
 |
| Kobeejo before surgery |
I hugged him, told him I loved him through my tears. I kissed his face and when I pulled back, I noticed, though he had not moved, he shifted his eye to look directly at me. He was grateful I was there. But I had to leave. We left about 6:15pm and the vet promised to call once they had an answer.
We went back to the barn, and I had to go in to get something. When I saw Kobee's empty stall, I broke down. I grabbed what I needed and went home. At this point I had had only 2 hours' sleep in 24 hours and had eaten nothing. My stomach was in knots.
I attempted to eat a half bowl of soup but it didn't stay in me long due to my nerves. I felt so pained and ill and my heart was racing again. I knew my beloved was in surgery and I just kept repeating "please be ok, please."
I kept busy by answering the hundreds of messages I received from horse friends who heard what happened. My cat, Lucy, whom I hand-raised since she was 10 days old would not leave me alone; she rubbed on me, climbed on me, purred loudly and did all she could to make me feel better.
At 7:45pm the phone rang... it was the vet. She informed me Kobeejo had a lipoma that had wrapped around a small portion of intestine... the same thing Luke had died from, but she praised me for getting Kobeejo in so quickly. No intestine had been badly damaged and they removed the lipoma. She informed me Kobeejo was still in surgery and the surgeon was going through all of his intestines to be sure everything was "alive." She said the surgeon would call me when done with the surgery.
Waiting is so difficult!
About 10pm I laid down and Lucy laid on my chest with her face against mine, purring loudly. About 10:30pm, the phone rang. It was the surgeon. Kobeejo came through the surgery well and all his intestines seemed good. He was still asleep in the recovery stall... on a mattress. She said she would call again once he woke up and was on his feet.
More waiting. My mind kept going to race horse Ruffian, who had broken a leg in a race in the '70s (which I had seen when I was a kid). She had thrashed so much waking from surgery, she broke another leg and had to be put down. I was once again a total wreck. The surgeon told me it might take 1 - 1.5 hours before he was awake.
I watched the clock. An hour went by, then 2 hours. I was freaking out. But, at 12:42am (Valentine's Day), the phone rang. I grabbed it up so fast, Lucy fell off me. Kobeejo was awake and back in his "regular" stall. They would need to do a lavage (emptying, basically) of his stomach to be sure he had no food in there, then he would be left to rest with IV, antibiotics and other meds he needed. She said someone would call in the morning and for me to get some rest.
It is now 3:30am. I needed to get all this out, so I have been sitting here writing, which is what I do... I am a writer. Tomorrow (or rather a bit later in the morning today), hope beyond hope, it's good news. I'm hoping I can get some sleep. I'm so frightened of the phone ringing with bad news. But I shouldn't think that way. Though he is 27, Kobeejo is a fighter, and great care has kept him strong and healthy. He is the blood that runs through my veins and I am his. We are soulmates.
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