Sick Horse

Update: 2:04 pm MDT: The mineral oil has passed through Lily’s digestive tract. This is very good news. I am about to leave to pick her up at the clinic.

Yesterday, when I got to the barn, D reported that my mare Lily had been acting as though she was having one of her “spells.” She has had a fair number of these spells over the years, which present as mild colic attacks. We arranged our plans for the day so we could keep an eye on her. By mid-afternoon, we started to worry that this was more severe than her regular spells, and called the vet out, who diagnosed a moderately severe impaction colic.  However, there were no signs of a torsion after a rectal exam, so she tubed her with oil and water, and gave her heavy-duty pain killers.  Two hours later we called her when it was obvious that the pain-killers were doing very little, and she was accumulating gas rather than passing it.

I called the vet and we had one of those grim little discussions about whether Lily was insured (NO) and whether colic surgery was an option (NO). (If colic surgery had been an option, she would have handed off Lily to a clinic that does them.) As Lily was continuing to try to throw herself down when allowed I was afraid to even put her in a
trailer for the fifteen minute ride to the vet’s clinic.

The vet came out again. While we were waiting, Lily managed to go down and get her
hind legs through the rails of a fence. I felt like giving up at that point, but Lily managed to get herself uncast right after the vet arrived while we were discussing what to do. The vet did another rectal exam and still felt no signs of torsion (a twist in the intestine). I was sure she had a twist higher than the vet could feel but not quite sure enough to request she be put down. The vet had given her more drugs, and this time they seemed to give her some relief. Even so, of the three of us, D was the only one who had much optimism at that point. D and I arranged to meet the vet at her clinic in forty-five minutes since the vet had another call to make, which gave us a chance for a long over-due supper. The vet was having the day from hell since her partner in the practice was out of town.

Lily went into the trailer without too much fuss and came out breathing fire. I walked her (actually was dragged around by her) for a while, then led her into her stall at the clinic.  She investigated the stall and then went down. She still looked more comfortable than she had for many hours and lay quietly with her head up. As we waited for the vet to arrive, we could hear gas gurgles, which was very welcome since she had been lacking gut sounds for a scarily long time. I told the vet I wanted to her to call me with any significant change, good or bad. The vet had another colic case in clinic, and expected to be up all night administering pain-killers and fluids.

I was laying awake at 1:30 when the vet called to say that Lily had made a big pile of manure and had passed a lot of gas and seemed reasonably comfortable. We had previously discussed a procedure which would vent the gas but she had not felt it necessary. After that, I was able to sleep for a few hours. At 6:30 I spoke to the vet again. She had left a vet tech monitoring Lily and had gone home to catch a few hours of sleep herself. She was guardedly optimistic, since Lily had made another pile of manure, had gut sounds on both sides (though diminished on her right side) and was only occasionally looking at her right side. If all goes well, we hope to bring her home today.