The Phone Call

[Note: This post is part of my Donut "catch up" posts, so this experience is actually from about three months ago.]

It was a normal Saturday, about 2 o'clock in the afternoon.  I was sitting at the dining room table, checking my To-Do List and thinking about what I needed to get done that weekend.  Then my phone rang, and it was the lady who was working at the barn that day.  In fact, she was the same person who had initially alerted the barn owner when Nimo wasn't feeling well, a couple of days before he died.  And, it was about the same time of day too.

She said, "Hey Gail, Donut doesn't seem to be herself.  She looks really lethargic."  We talked for a couple of minutes, and it sounded like Donut wasn't coming out of her daily nap like usual and she was still laying down and not very responsive to people.

I didn't spend much time thinking, I just got off the phone, ran to tell my husband I was headed to the barn, and rushed out the door.  As I drove as fast as was reasonably legal toward the barn, I realized that all of the protections I had erected after Nimo's death were failing.  I started to feel like I was going to hyperventilate, and my hands were shaking.  I felt like I was on the verge of really breaking down.  Every time I tried to come up with a plan for what to do when I got to the barn, my brain just shut down.  Even thinking about which vet I would call wasn't working.  

(I had planned to use a different vet clinic than the two I had used for Nimo.  While I felt that the vets from both clinics were capable in many ways, I had gotten frustrated with one clinic because it seemed like they were very heavy on diagnostic tests that didn't necessarily match Nimo's symptoms.  So each vet visit tended to result in hundreds of dollars of tests that didn't seem necessary, and that was money I would rather have saved for when it was really needed.  The other clinic had recently lost one of its two vets, which meant any emergency call would likely not be responded to very quickly.  I had found another clinic that I wanted to try, based on feedback from several clients, but I hadn't set up the initial visit yet.  So I couldn't decide who I should call.)

As I drove, one of my first coherent thoughts was that I shouldn't be driving.  I was having some kind of emotional breakdown, and I could barely focus on anything.  But I didn't want to take the time to go home and have my husband drive me.  Then it occurred to me that I could call a friend.  One of my good friends had been working part time at the barn, and she knew Donut and what Donut was like during that time of the day.  I tended to see Donut a little later in the afternoon and evening, so getting feedback from someone who was familiar with her activity level would be helpful.  Also, she is one of those rock star people who are calm in a crisis and are good sounding boards for ideas.  Somehow I got my fingers to work well enough to use the touch screen on my phone, and I called her.  When she finally figured out what was going on - it took a minute because I wasn't making very much sense at first - she immediately said she was on her way would meet me at the barn.  She lived about the same distance away that I did, so she could be there shortly after I got there (assuming I didn't crash the truck first).

As I drove, multiple people from the barn called me or sent text messages to give me updates on Donut.  It was both a blessing and a curse.  I was glad to hear how she was doing, but everything was filtered through someone else's perspective.  And the thing that was unsaid but that I was very aware of was that everyone was crazy worried about me because of what happened to Nimo and how it would be really awful if something happened to Donut so soon after I got her.

In between phone calls and messages, I was unfortunately left alone with myself and my barely functioning brain.  I kept trying to imagine what thing could cause lethargy, but my brain simply could not put any name to anything.  I don't even think it could imagine the concept of a disease at that point.  I was just stuck on, "something is wrong with Donut just like something was wrong with Nimo, and Nimo died, so that means..."  And I kept trying not to break down into tears.

Finally, after what seemed like a million years, I pulled up to the barn.  The last message I'd gotten said that Donut was standing up and seemed to be eating hay.  That sounded positive, right?

As I walked to Donut's stall, two or three people told me their summaries of what they had seen, but I'm not sure I was listening.  I just wanted to see her with my own eyes.

And when I got to her stall and looked at her, she looked fine.  She was alert and immediately engaged with me, looking to see if I had brought her any of those wonderful carrots that made her whole world light up.  Then, my friend got there and she got the updates and we went in to the stall together to take a closer look.  

I think I was still shaking at that point and really not thinking very clearly, but I managed to figure out that we could check her vital signs to start with.  So we took her temperature (it was normal), and her pulse (also normal).  I was beyond thankful that I had the vital signs from the wellness check I had done a couple of weeks before I brought her to the barn.  Otherwise, I might have panicked when her pulse came back at 60 bpm.  (Young horses can have higher pulse rates than full-grown horses, and Donut's had been 60 bpm at her wellness check too.)

My friend and I went over her body carefully, looking for anything that looked like an injury or otherwise not normal.  We watched her for about 20 minutes and couldn't see any cause for concern.  The most likely explanation was that she had been taking a nap and maybe something had happened (like an unusual sound) that woke her up earlier than she was ready for.  And like can sometimes happen with people, she had a little trouble focusing at first because her body was still in sleep mode.

I did stay with her for a couple of hours, and I turned her out myself to make sure she seemed to be behaving normally.  Everything looked good, and I finally went home, thankful that Donut was OK.  And thankful that there were people at the barn watching out for her and thankful that I had a good friend that I could call if I needed help.

But the knowledge that horses can be so powerful and yet sometimes so fragile is something that I can't escape.  Being a horse parent is a lot like being a human parent.  We do the best we can with the knowledge we have, but we know that we can't control everything.  That somewhere out there is a virus or a bacterium or a hole in the ground or slippery mud or sharp rocks or a falling tree or some other hazard that we can't see or prevent from hurting our horse.  Despite all the worry and false alarms (and real alarms), I remain convinced that the uncertainty and the inevitable end is worth it for the joy these wonderful creatures bring to our lives.  But I could do without some excitement for a little while...