*throws her hands in the air* Oh, Pony……

I rarely stop to think about life. About how huge things can hinge on on things of little importance; at least, things that have little importance until placed in the right context.

My daughter Seraphina has a pony.

Actually, I’ve had Levi for a few years and used him as a lesson pony until I moved and had Sera, and during that time he was leased out to the mom of a friend of mine for her ten year old son. He’s a thirty year old Hackney/Welsh cross and is what we would call a ‘smutty’ buckskin, being a color like tarnished gold with sooty black legs, a black mane and tail. And the blackest shoe-button eyes I’ve ever seen on an equine. He’s broke to death, has an absolutely lovely disposition, and is sound as a dollar. Granted, being older, he’s missing a few teeth and has to live on grain slurpies and very grassy hay that he can chew without choking, but he’s worth the extra few cents it costs to feed him because he’s a doll and Sera is madly in love with him. She tells everyone she sees about her pony Levi and has a half-dozen stuffed horses all named ‘Levi’, no matter what color or breed they are, since apparently he’s the pinnacle of all horsedom.

Enter last Thursday morning.

I get a call from M., the lady who owns the barn where we board. She said that Levi didn’t finish his second AM feed, consisting of heavily soaked Equine Senior feed, and that he was looking at his belly and trying to roll. She’d pulled him out and took him with her around the farm as she did her chores so he could try to walk it off, and he was still colicky. I called the vet and told him to meet me out at the farm and then proceeded to shag my butt out the door with J. and Sera in tow.

A bit of walking, a jug of oil administered via naso-gastric tube, a shot of Banamine, and 6 liters of IV fluids later, he was looking around for food and feeling considerably better. So, we left him in the able hands of M. and headed home, where I got a phone call a couple of hours later that he had gotten painful again and kept trying to roll. I flew out to the barn for the second time and that is where the nightmare began.

Dr. Jim stitched an IV catheter into his neck and hooked him up again to IV fluids, and over the course of the next  nine hours we put ten more liters into him. He gave me two cc’s of Rompun to keep him calm if I needed to, being that he needed to stand still and not roll or throw himself about while on the IV. He gave the pony a shot of Ketophen to supplement the Banamine and told me to call if he got worse.

When I asked him what this looked like, he looked kind of doubtful and said it was likely an impaction in his gut, but, at his advanced age, horses and ponies sometimes develop lipomas that hang in the intestinal cavities and can wrap around the bowel, causing gas distension or interrupting blood flow. He asked me if Levi was a candidate for surgery, to which I tearfully had to reply that he was not, due to his age. I’ve seen how hard colic surgery is on horses I and didn’t want to put the old man through that if our chances of him living a happy, healthy life after surgery were not very good.

Nine hours later…..

We were all exhausted. J. and I were nodding in our chairs so I sent him out to sit in the car and get and hour of sleep. Levi and I were alone in the stall, I’ve got 1/2 cc of Rompun left and the last dose only gave him about 10 minutes of peace. His gut had blown up to twice its normal size, and he was throwing himself around and striking out with his front feet to try to get relief. He had still not passed any gas or manure. When he started to rear from the pain I knew we had gone as far as we were going to go. I capped off the catheter and turned him loose in the stall, turned the barn lights off, took my cell phone out to the car and called the vet. I told Dr. Jim that we were done. He asked if I wanted Levi euthanized and I just told him to come out and bring what he needed to if and when we came to that.

Less than an hour later the vet was there. He watched Levi try to roll in the stall, looked at his labored breathing and the distension of his gut and shook his head. He told me he likely had a torsion, either caused by a twist of the gut or the aforementioned lipomas, and that he would probably just continue to bloat until something ruptured, which would kill him. I asked if there was anything else we could try. Dr. Jim kind of shook his head and said that Levi could go on for another day or so like this, because his heart rate was still pretty low and he hadn’t gone toxic yet. I told him I would not put that pony, after all his years of hard work and service, through that kind of pain, dying slowly by inches until his gut ruptured. We asked M. if there was a good place to take him so the rendering company could pick him up easily and she told me we could take him out the front door of the barn, up the driveway and in front of the big barn by the hay conveyor, where there was a nice flat area with easy access to the road. I asked if he would please sedate Levi first; I did not want to watch him crash to the ground when the injection kicked in, like others I’d seen. He said he would let Levi pick a spot to lay down and then give him a mild sedative to keep him quiet. 

We headed out. Dr. Jim first, going to his truck to get the shot; me, leading Levi who was walking with all his usual vigor despite his pain, sobbing my eyes out; M., sobbing with me; and then J., trying not to and also trying not to fall asleep where he stood. As we exited the barn, I heard M. cry out in a tearful voice, "He’s pooping! Stop, he’s pooping!."

We stopped in our tracks. Dr. Jim watched as Levi cramped up a bit and then passed some gas. We stood staring at him for what felt like an eternity before the vet said. "You know, he’s painful, he’s bloating, but his heart rate is still low. He’s not toxic. I don’t want to get your hopes up but let’s see if we can leave this to nature."

I was confused. "But I don’t want him to suffer."

Dr. Jim said. :"You won’t lose anything by giving him a couple of hours. Take him down to the indoor arena and let him loose. Let him roll and lay down. Let’s see if he can shake this on his own. We’ve done what we can medically. He’s well hydrated. He won’t suffer much more than he has now and if he gets to where he’s really banging his head on the ground from the pain I’ll leave you a shot of Rompun and you can give it to him and call me. I’ll come out then and put him down."

I stared at him blankly. The vet said, "That’s what I would do if he was mine."

That sealed the deal. We walked Levi down to the indoor and let him loose. Let him roll. It was awful watching him try to roll with that bloated gut; he couldn’t even get on his back, let alone roll all the way over. We left him laying quietly and turned the lights off. It was Friday, 6:20 AM.

Dr, Jim said to me, "Go home. Get some sleep. Call me in a few hours and let me know how he is. I’ll be back around the area by 10:00 AM and I can come out and euthanize him then if we need to."

I want home. Took a shower. Tried to sleep. Got up at eight and called M. She told me, "Yeah, i checked on him. No poo yet, but he’s rolled over afew times and still seems a bit painful."

I was rather disappointed that he wasn’t better, but I hadn’t let my hopes up too far so I was pretty pragmatic about it. Until something she said clicked. "Rolled over?"

"Yeah." She said, "Rolled around and got up. Why?"

"BECAUSE HE COULDN’T ROLL ALL THE WAY OVER THIS MORNING."

Silence. I told her I was on my way and headed out. By the time I got there he was HALF HIS PREVIOUS SIZE and wanted something to eat. He stood in the arena, looking tired and a little dazed, passing gas every little while. I called the vet, still in shock.

Dr. Jim told me to finish the ten liters of fluid I still had left over the course of the day. Five minutes after I hooked him up to the IV he pooped again. Passed some more gas. Looked at me with eyes full of reproach as if to say, "Where the hell is breakfast, lady?"

Things proceeded from there.

He was fine. Passed a bunch of cow pies and ate some soaked hay. Glared at me because I didn’t give him more. By this morning he was back to his usual stinky self and I pulled the catheter out and turned him outside for an hour.

I measured how far we’d have had to walk to get up by the big barn, by the hay conveyor. About fifty feet. I guessed it would have taken about three minutes to get him up there, lay him down, and give him the injection.

Fifty feet. Three minutes.

And a life.

All hinging on a pile of horse manure. Big things hinging on little things. And a little girl still has a pony.

Many thanks to J. for staying up with me despite his aversion to nature and an allergy to horses. And many, many thanks to M. for all she does to keep my boys shiny side up and happy as pigs in a sty.
I’m gonna sleep for the next two days. Yup.

-Rebecca