I’ve learned that you need to expect the unexpected when it
comes to veterinary field work.
In one day, I woke up to the announcement that the foal that
we were waiting for had finally been born at the clinic. The mare was at the
clinic for observation due to having the tendency to retain her placenta after
birth. We had been patiently waiting for this foal, even as the mare went past
her expected delivery date. By three weeks. At first we had thought maybe there
had been a mistake in her breeding history and she was actually bred later than
had been written down. But that was not the case; she was indeed three weeks
overdue. This has been a fairly common occurrence this breeding season for some
reason, possibly due to the crazy ups and downs in the Michigan weather. Regardless,
we were gifted with a happy and healthy, solid black Standardbred colt.
After visiting with the new addition, we went about our
scheduled farm calls for the day. However, within a couple hours, it was
obvious that this was going to be anything but a typical day. Emergency calls
poured in one after another. The first was to a mare that was found down after
what appeared to be a full night of rolling due to colic. When we arrived to the
barn, she was up and walking around but clearly depressed. A rectal exam was
performed and a belly tap resulted in serosanguinous (thin and blood-tinged)
liquid which is indicative of a twist or rupture of intestines. The owner made
the decision to put the mare down immediately instead of taking the gamble to
ship the mare to MSU for colic surgery that had no significant promise for
recovery. It was crushing to see the guilt that the owner had for not checking
on her horses the previous evening like she always does. We cannot say when the
mare began to colic or if she would have had a better prognosis if her
situation had been noticed earlier. That is probably the most frustrating and
scary thing when it comes to colic in horses. The fact that perfectly healthy
horses can colic at any point in time for any reason is terrifying.
Another emergency following that call was up at a warmblood
breeding farm. A promising imported filly had gotten tangled in a fence and cut
deep into one of her hind cannon bones. When we arrived, she had layers of
clothes and makeshift tourniquets around the leg to stop the bleeding. We laid
her down with sedatives to get a better look at the injury. After unwrapping
all of the layers, we could see that the wire had sawed through the common
digital extensor tendon running down the front of the leg and through the superficial
flexor tendon down the back of the leg. The damage was too great for us to
repair in the middle of the field, but the filly was worth enough money that
they were willing to trailer her down to MSU for surgery and aftercare. After
splinting the leg for support and cutting several strands of fence to bring in
the trailer, we loaded her into the trailer and sent her on her way. She is
doing well and will be heading back to the farm in a few days.
The last call of the day was emotional as well. The family had
scheduled two euthanasias during the same visit. The first was their family
pony with a long history of laminitis and she could no longer move around
comfortably. Her quality of life was suffering and putting her down was the
best decision in this situation. The second euthanasia was more difficult. It
was for one of their dogs with child aggression. The dog had belonged to the
oldest daughter and she had trained him for 4H obedience and agility. He was
the first one to meet us when we had pulled up into the driveway. He was
bouncing around and as happy as could be. Unfortunately, he had bitten a few
children over the past year including the family’s youngest daughter. His aggression
was unpredictable and they had tried many different options, but nothing had
worked. It was difficult thinking about euthanizing a young, healthy dog, but
all of the other options had been exhausted.
Needless to say, having all of this happen in less than
twelve hours was emotionally overwhelming. I know understand when professors
and practitioners talk about “compassion fatigue”. As a future practitioner, I
will have to learn how to balance this aspect of veterinary medicine.
No comments:
Post a Comment