I can’t believe that she is gone.
Kasane came up with what we thought was mild colic this morning. The barn owners called me about 8:45 AM. I called the vet, let my office know I wouldn’t be around today, and headed out to the barn. By the time I got to the barn, the vet had just gotten there. Kasane was inside the barn and this was not a mild colic. She had gotten much worse. Her hind legs were shaking and she kept trying to walk forward like that was helping her balance. Her abdomen was all drawn up and her hip bones were so prominent. She was in severe pain. My vet gave Kasane several doses of pain killers and other things to try and help Kasane. Nothing helped.
We were referred to the local vet hospital for colic surgery. Loaded Kasane up and got to the vet school in about 45 minutes. We opened the partition and left her untied in case she ended up laying down. She did. When I walked up to the trailer after the back doors were open, I saw her head upon the chest bar and her body laying down. We got her off and she was very unstable. She could barely support herself on her hind end. The vets walked Kasane into one of the padded admitting stalls where she was prepped for surgery. They got the IV line in place. I could see her back legs trembling, her entire body still drawn up like a greyhound’s midsection. She was in so much pain. And then she surged through the door, pushing several vet techs out of the way, knocking over several stacked carts. Her back legs buckled and she ended up supporting her weight on her fetlocks, and then she fell on her side. The vets knocked her out there, so she wouldn’t injure herself. She was pulled onto a plastic sheet/sled and pulled back into admitting stall.
The vets warned me that this looked like very severe colic and that there was a chance we were too late or that something had ruptured. The barn owner stayed with me and we waited several hours for news.
The vets found nothing wrong in Kasane’s abdomen. No sign of colic. Blood panels and organ function tests had come back normal. No sign of *anything* except for some pebble-sized masses on her liver and around her abdominal cavity.
The problem is because the vets didn’t find anything to fix, there was nothing to be done to correct Kasane’s pain. About 1:00 PM or so she was in the admitting stall for recovery. The vets had given her something to help her come out of everything slowly. She started coming around so the barn owner and I went over by the stall to be near. Except Kasane heard my voice and reacted to it. The vet told us to stand away and be quiet. I stood behind the yellow line and waited. Watched as Kasane slowly came out but never stood. Sometimes all I could see was her hind end on the ground through the swarm of vets and the closed stall doors with the small people door partially open. They had a rope tied to her tail and another rope fastened somewhere on her front end. I never saw where.
They tried to get her to stand several times. She was up twice but was never able to stand on her own. She was supported by the vets in the room and by the other vets pulling on the rope attached to her tail. They tried to stabilize her but she would take a few trembling steps and then collapse.
After three hours of this, she had gotten weaker and was in such intense pain. There was nothing I could do to help her except let her go.
My best friend sent me a text and asked how Kasane was. I replied with, “She’s gone.”
I will write more later. I just can’t do this right now.
