Finishing up on last months story of the bathing beauty, in short it didn’t end well. Due to the craziness of the owner and the poor condition of the horse I figured the main problem was that the horse needed to be fed better and have its sheath cleaned. The penis did have a little tumor that most likely regrew from when it was here a couple years ago to have a much larger tumor removed from the same site. After a couple days here over the weekend it was clear that the horse had more going on. He had very little appetite though we was very thin and his teeth were in pretty good condition for an old horse which can become a real problem as a horse ages and starts to get down to nubs or loose teeth altogether so the opposite tooth over grows. A rectal palpation revealed a strange mass on inside body wall of the abdomen that we hypothesized was a tumor. We then began to think it may be a metastasized tumor related to the same cancer he had earlier and likely has spread to other organs in the abdomen that you can’t reach from the rectum. This was not good news to give the owner who was quite upset but given the age of the horse there is likely nothing we can do that the owner could afford or that would improve the quality of life of the horse. She decided to just come pick him up but it would take a couple of days to round up a trailer. During those two days the horse really began to go down hill quickly. He became more and more depressed mentally and even began to show neurologic signs of stumbling, and not being aware of his surroundings. By the time the distraught owner arrived the horse was in very bad condition. We began to wonder if he should be put down here and not taken all the way back to Utah. Upon seeing her horse the crazy owner became hysterical yelling that she should have never brought her poor horse here and he would have been better on the farm with his friends (all of which were probably true in hind sight). She kept draping her arms around him and crying uncontrollably. She finally decided she would take him home and have her veterinarian put him down when she got there so we loaded him up though he at this time was having a hard time standing and starting to act very agitated. As soon as he climbed into the two horse trailer and the doors closed the owner reached her arm in the side window to give him a handful of hay and he collapsed and struggled until he was in a very awkward position on his back wedged at the back door. I crawled in the window with another Dr and tried to see if we could get him up but it was clear that he was not able or willing. It was decided to put him down in the trailer and she could drive him home to bury him on the farm. It was quite a dramatic scene with the owner involved but the sound I will probably remember forever in the sad sobbing I heard trailing off over the noise of the engine and the tires as the poor crazed and distraught owner pulled away from the parking lot and down the road. I felt so sorry for the owner and wished that there was something I could do to comfort her but I know well enough that there are sometimes when there is just nothing that can take those tough experiences away.
Later on that night, I was assisting Dr Schur on an emergency colic farm call and she told me a story that happened to Dr Lamb and the owners of the boarding facility we were at treating the colicky horse. The owners were kind of shifty in that they never worked yet always had lots of money. In Vegas there are lots of ways that people get money but the husband did get put in jail for drug related stuff in fact he may still be there now because the wife came out to see us work on the horse but he wasn’t around. In any case, they had a daughter in her teens several years back who had a horse that got colic really bad. In fact, the horse had ruptured his bowel and once a horse does that there is no saving them. You can do your best for a couple days with fluid therapy and antibiotics and surgery but eventually they will die from it. So the only thing Dr Lamb could do was put the horse down. It was a very dramatic scene with the daughter being very distraught, laying on the horse yelling, “put me in the ground with her...I don’t want to live with out her…” and carrying on. Later on that night the teen over dosed on drugs and was rushed to the hospital but died that same night. Thinking of how I felt earlier that day I could imagine how Dr Lamb felt when he got the news. Especially since he was the one who put the poor horse down that caused the daughter to be so upset. Both events were out of his control but it really made me think about how much of an effect horses have on their owners and how as a veterinarian might effect people lives. As a veterinarian things can be so fragile and complex and the outcomes sometimes are so unpredictable more from the human side rather than with horses who are simple animals in comparison.
No comments:
Post a Comment