January 22, 2003
11:07 a.m.

I didn't get home last night until five in the morning. I am exhausted. Those emergency colic surgeries will kick you in the butt everytime. Dr. C and I went out to her last appointment of the day, and as we were leaving, she starts getting paged like crazy. When we got to one colic, the horse was down, and while Dr. C pulled up meds, I ran up there to help get the horse up. He went down two more times in the time it took Dr. C to get from her truck, to the barn. He was hurting. Dr. C said that the way it was looking, the horse would need surgery.

She went to the clinic, and left me at the lady's house to help keep the horse up while we waited for her next door neighbor to bring a trailor. Dr. C had given the horse major pain meds, enough meds that a normal horse would be on the ground, it wasn't even touching this horse. We got back to the clinic at about six thirty, got the horse on fluids, and watched and waited. He was still going down, and he was maxed out on the amount of meds we could give him. Dr. C went home to let her dogs out, and pick up a little dinner for us, and left me at the clinic to watch him. While she was gone, he went to his knees several times, but never went down. Of course, the fact that I was screaming, and banging on the stall door might have had something to do with that.

When Dr. C got back, she took one look at him, and said 'We're going to surgery.' We called Kathy into work, and we got the horse down and on the table. It was a bitch shaving him, because he had a thick winter coat that was wet, and matted from sweat and rolling in the mud. When we finally cut, Dr. C reached her hands in his abdoman, and started cussing. The horse had two large fatty tumors, one which ended up strangulating a piece of instestine. Dr. C didn't give up, and cut out the lipomas, and continued with the surgery. When she was mostly done, I saw her stop, and just look over the intestines. Some of it was an unhealthy color, not quite dead yet, but unhealthy, more was extremely red and irritated, and, all in the mesentary, little fat tumors were developing. Prognosis just wasn't that great. So, she called the owner. As I was wetting the intestines down, I saw her walk out with the bottle of euthanasia. We put the horse to sleep on the table.

Dr. C was really upset, this is the fifth or sixth animal she has put to sleep this week alone. Last night, as we were sewing up the horse, she looked at the incision, 'I always do the best incisions on animals I kill.' I just shook my head, 'You didn't -kill- him.' We spent most the rest of the night in silence. I really hate it for her, I hate that she hurts.

It really hurts to try so much to help an animal, and still be helpless. After helping to clean up and everything, I went home, exauhsted. I went to sleep, and woke up five hours later to take my dogs out. Needless to say, I think I am going to be a bit brain dead at work today.

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