Smiley at Alamo Pintado

A lot of you have emailed or called me, asking me why I have not been blogging. Most of you know the answer by now, but Smiley has been at Alamo Pintado for a week now, and very sick before that.





The morning after my last blog- Tuesday the 18th- I got to the barn before class at 8 am and found Smiley with Julie in the crossties- VERY SICK. VERY high temp, unresponsive.


Diagnosis: colitis.





Through the week, Smiley's temp would spike in the am but go down with the banamine. He was not himself, but still very stable on Thursday. I made the decision to go ahead and take Venturo to the CdK clinic, paying Julie extra to take care of Smiley. I got reports through the weekend, he was not peeing, temp had spiked on Friday. By Sunday, when I got home, I knew that something was very, very wrong. I stopped again on Monday morning and then Monday afternoon. I could not get ahold of my vet and David could not either. Monday afternoon, he was not walking right and was very weak. I went home and called Julie to see if she knew what was going on with the whole vet situation and she filled me in on a few details of the worry of the weekend.





Then, I made the decision to call Alamo Pintado. For the non-horse people, Alamo is one of the best equine hospitals in the country (if you ask me, THE best). Both of my horses have been there for non-emergency diagnostics with Dr. Rick. I called and told the woman at the front desk all of Smiley's symptoms... she conferred with the internal medicine vet on call, Dr. Byrne, and said Smiley needed to come up RIGHT NOW... that the symptoms have gone on too long.





I frantically called around- we have a trailer but I have never driven it loaded and my parents were gone to Newport. I knew that if I had to do it, I could, but preferred to not try the first time with a sick horse and no help. Thank GOD Angie offered her trailer and truck, and David drove me. I just knew I had to get the horse there ASAP, that things had gone too far already. I followed David and Andrea there.





We unloaded Smiley, and although weak, he seemed not as sick there. I briefly wondered if I had overreacted... David hoped that I had, for Smiley's sake, but it was clear he saw the emergency in the situation. They put Smiley in isolation ICU when we got there, which scared me. They took baseline blood, temp, etc and brought in an ultrasound machine to u/s his abdomen. His spleen was very large and he was anemic.





Over the next day, the vets there tried so many different tests... they did more u/s and xrays, consulted me to see if they could do a spleen tap (they have blood donors on site). By Thursday, they were out of options for tests, and Smiley was colicky, in a lot of pain. Dr. Rick had been looking in on him and consulting for a few days, and wanted to do exploratory surgery. At first they wanted to do the type with the little camera, but as the colicky symptoms persisted, he wanted to go in.





I spent the afternoon and early evening with Smiley. He would be okay- up and kind of himself, but then down and groaning. I would take his head in my arms and hold his head in my hands or lap and stroke his face. Dr. Byrne didn't want to go in when he was okay, but it was so on and off... so Mom and I went out to dinner in Los Olivos and came back, Smiley was okay so they weren't going to do the surgery right then... I kept seeing Dr. Rick walk by the ICU stall and Dr. Byrne would stand at the stall and watch him. I forgot at the time, but all the vets could see him on the camera that was in his stall.





We got about 10 minutes down the highway when I got a call from "Withheld". My heart sank. He had started colicking again when we left, so we turned around and went straight back.





I spent a few minutes with Smiley in his stall... I didn't want to think about it, but surgery is risky, and who knows what they would find. I stayed with him in the preop... washing out his mouth, grooming, tranqs- Dr. Rick was not on call, but insisted on doing the surgery himself... so Smiley would have two full blown top- tier vets in the room as well as two intern vets (licensed vets that are interning at AP) in the room.





I went up to a small observation room to watch the surgery with Mom. A window overlooked the room, and we could see them in the smaller recovery room putting him out. I couldn't see much, but he was on the ground, then on his back... then he was hoisted by a track and carried by all of the vets into the surgical room and onto the table. His four legs were up, a breathing tube was inserted, IV tubes, regulating machines were on to watch all of his vitals. It was really an awesome and scary sight.





They shaved him and washed and washed and scrubbed... I thought they would go straight through the skin with all of the cleaning they did. Surgical equipment was brought out, and Dr. Rick started scrubbing up while the interns continued to prepare Smiley. They put some sort of 3M surgical pad/paper whatever on his skin and then a huge blue paper cloth.

I couldn't watch the first incision, but had no problems afterwards. I was fascinated by the surgery itself, and it almost didn't feel like MY horse because most of his body was covered by the huge blue sterile cloth. I could just see whatever was out and kind of his face, but he was upside down with a huge tube in his mouth, so it didn't really look like Smiley. Dr. Rick kept pulling out intestines and examining them, then "stuffing" them back in. I was told later that there is a very special way and place for them to go, and it just looks random. When he took the intestines out, he kind of rotated/pulled them out-

Finally, after a very long time, he started making motions of size with his hands to Dr. Byrne, who then brought over ultrasound machine and put it in a sterile sleeve and then Dr. Rick probed into his abdomen.

After they pulled the u/s out of his abdomen, Dr. Rick and Dr. Byrne talked and then Dr. Byrne walked up to where I was sitting. They found internal abscesses, which are "fixable" with antibiotics but not removable. That was a relief, because we found the problem and it was fixable, but it was not something we could snip out.

The good news is that Smiley has been progressing really well. He came out of surgery okay, and I have heard nothing but positive reports from Dr. Byrne. He is still weak, but seems to be gaining strength... in fact, we have had all positive reports (touch wood). I am going up to Alamo three days a week to see him because I have been told by the intern vets that he really perks up when I am around, and I miss him terribly. I can't even think about how things might have turned out had we not taken him to Alamo or if we had taken him anywhere else... they are truly THE BEST and I know that the care he is getting is out of this world.

I will keep you more updated... Now that I have updated you, it will be a lot easier.