A little back story here …
About a year and a half ago, my dear friend Kathy Calanni discovered that she had cancer. She was terribly ill and having difficulty taking care of her four horses, so friends (who lived closer to her) were doing their best to stop over and fill the gaps. Clearly, more help was needed, so sight unseen, I offered to take the only gelding in the herd, a chestnut Arabian gelding, named after the town drunk, Jivus. [To the human Jivus out there, all the best … ]
Jivus was thirty years old, struggled to keep weight, and it was just about Thanksgiving. So in a team effort, my husband and I headed to Kathy’s farm, where our friend Carla helped us load Jivus home. Her daughter, Nicole, had bought him a cozy waterproof blanket, and he settled in nicely on our farm.
Sadly, our friend Kathy died last March. We miss her terribly but it gives me great comfort to take care of her old guy.
Jivus has also acted as a companion horse for our friend Randi, who needed a buddy for her horse, Ike, after she had to have his two barnmates euthanized.
This spring, he returned to our homestead. And so here we are, back to the present …
He had been out in his pasture for the last 36 hours or so when I brought him in this morning. He’d had water and his feed and grass. Lots of shade out there and it’s been in the 50s and 60s, low humidity. Perfect turnout weather. He came in nice and spry having eaten all his feed, and dug into some more when he got in to his stall.
When I went out to ride at about 10, he was having a nap. Okay, no biggie. I did stalls, he’s still still lying down. I groomed Ace and tacked him up, still lying down. I kept telling myself not to panic, he was an old horse who was tired after some overnight carousing. He looked bright eyed and perky, and he’d pooped between being brought in and napping, so I headed out to ride.
Had a lovely, mostly walking trail ride on Ace. About two hours, lots of hill climbing, and a long mile trot up our big hill at the end. Perfect blue skies with big fluffy clouds, 60s, a breeze. Sigh. Heavenly.
But when I got into the barn, Ji was still down and I thought his feet looked awfully close to the wall.
So I crosstied Ace wearing his halter bridle/hackamore, using the upper rings because the lower halter rings are blocked by the hackamore. Wanted to see if I could bring Jivus’ front feet around without delay as I didn’t know if he’d been cast and struggled and gotten tired.
Took a soft cotton lead rope, carefully drew Jivus’ front legs and head neck away from the wall where he could get them in front of him, then headed back to Ace. Pulled his tack and as I went around to put his saddle on the rack, something freaked him out, who knows what as my back was to him, but the cross ties came flying down (we tie them to the rings with baling twine so they’ll break away) and blood is squirting out of Ace’s eye. Eeeeuuuuwww.
I get a closer look, he’s ripped the eyelid a bit in the lower corner (who knows how? the snap, I imagine) but his eye looks undamaged. I call the vet and she’s 2 hours away just starting to do some x-rays. Shit.
I tell her I have a “two for one” emergency. An eyelid to stitch and an old horse who is down and might be colicky.
She tells me to give Ji banamine, give Ace nothing (so he will be too sore to rub the eye) and she’ll be down here as soon as she can, and to call if there are any changes.
Jivus is not interested in getting up. I go sit with him in the stall. He goes from being up on his sternum to down on his side, groans occasionally. His HR is 60, cap refill is good, gums moist and pretty pink for a senior, and he glances at his side occasionally, but doesn’t seem in severe pain. I listen to his exposed side. No gut sounds that I can hear.
Give him the banamine. Which he lets me do without a fight. Not good as he’s a crusty old shit and usually doesn’t like his face/mouth messed with. Within 1/2 hour he’s shivering and looking a little more distressed. I cover him with a blanket and sit with him. Stroke his face and neck and mane. He continues to shiver. I decide he must be dying. I ask him if Kathy is calling him. (He does not answer.) I cry. A lot. I have all sorts of melodramatic conversations with myself. With Jivus. With Kathy. With Romeo the Cat who comes in to join the vigil.
Kim (vet) calls to say she’s on her way, I say he’s still down.
I decide, on a whim, to put his halter on him and see if he’ll get up. I no sooner put the halter on him and he starts scrambling. It ain’t pretty, but the boy gets to his feet, sways a little, has one leg that must be sound asleep as it’s shaking and looking a little cattiwampus and I eventually urge him to walk outside. He starts eating grass. He then starts walking ME around the yard. I call Rich, I call the vet, I call Carla. I tell them it looks like the old bastard (and I mean “bastard” with all the love in my heart that one can have for an elderly horse faking his own imminent death) is going to live.
He poops, he pees, he has a huge drink and he starts eating the hay from under the boys paddock fence, which he cannot truly chew and just leaves in cuds all over the place for me to clean up.
So here I am waiting for the vet to come stitch up Ace’s now swollen and REALLY ugly eyelid, and come look at Jivus and tell me he really was just fine after all.
<rolling eyes>
I cannot wait to come back in and pour a very large glass of red wine.
Update: 6/9/10
Jivus is fine. Well, relatively fine. He seems mildly off his feed, and he has that on/off cough and runny nose that he’s had since arriving back last month. I do not doubt that this is the beginning of the end, but the boy’s weight is grand, his coat is mirror shiny, he is jaunty and alert, and so I am going to take it one day at a time with regard to his longevity.
Kathy has been instructed to send me a billboard-sized sign to let me know she wants him back, and that it is no fair to whisper to him to come to the Rainbow Bridge and then tell him, nah, not just yet.
Ace’s eye is all stitched up and so we have the pleasure of trying to get meds into him twice a day for at least the next week. And this is a horse who hates being syringed. I locked him in last night, which had him all frantic by feeding time this morning, so I turned him out for a bit and managed to use a baby wipe to clean the drainage from his face and slather it with vaseline, in the hopes he doesn’t get an itchy scald from it. God, I hope he doesn’t rub that eye! (Not much else I can do, so my plan is simply to find a poofy fly mask that won’t catch on his stitches, turn him out and pray.)
It’s always an adventure with animals.
With regard to my workout/eating right plan, I should confess that immediately following Kim’s departure, Rich and I headed to our local hole in the wall, where they were having Wings and Yuengs Night. Chicken wings (hot), french fries and Yuenglings later (in a quantity that would make a Teamster proud), I was able to finally exhale and get a good night’s sleep.
I weighed myself this morning and was down two pounds. <still laughing> No worries, I’ll pay for that trans fat transgression on the scale in a few days.
Back to rainy day paperwork.
Peace.