It started out a perfect mid-June evening. I was on a complete “clinic high” as Mouse and I had just finished having my best riding clinic lessons ever. My partner Mouse is a 21 year old TB gelding, with loads of experience. He has been described as a “school master” and he is a very willing teacher and partner.
I took my time grooming and pampering Mouse before letting him out into the pasture to graze and play with his old friend, Sula. Both geldings were feeling pretty spunky and playful and took several gallops around the pasture before settling down to graze. As I walked up to the house I noticed the sun was starting to set, the horses were grazing peacefully and everything appeared idyllic in my small little corner of the world.
To celebrate the group breakthroughs, and ah-ha moments, we all experienced at the clinic we decided to go out to dinner at a favorite Thai food restaurant in Eugene. After much reminiscing about how wonderful the clinic was and how much we all improved (both horses and riders) we called it an evening and headed for home. As I pulled into the drive I notice my horses were all playfully bucking and cavorting, so I checked on them before going into the house to change into barn clothes. All of the horses’ seemed a bit spirited – with lots of galloping up to the fence to see me and then sprinting away to the far side of the pasture. It was dusk so it was sort of a magical to watch.
A few minutes later when Scot and I brought in the horses we noticed they all seemed really subdued, which was a huge change from fifteen minutes prior. We haltered the horses and led them in to their stalls and proceeded to get them fed. Scot and I both noticed that Mouse, seemed to be very agitated and worried, repeatedly going to the corner of his stall and pawing. So, I asked Scot to let him out of his stall to walk around inside the barn while I got the grain ready. As soon as Scot let him out of the stall he yelled for me to get out here and look at my horse. Scot is the picture of calm, so for him to yell I realized it was a huge emergency.
Mouse came out of his stall and had a giant fist sized gaping hole in his chest adjacent to his windpipe. He wasn’t just subdued he was in shock! The Ttouch and Tteam training took over – as calmly as I could I haltered Mouse and had Scot hold him while I examined the wound so I could give the vet a clear and accurate idea of what type of emergency we were dealing with.
Scot talked soothingly to Mouse while I got out the LED headlamp and started the pre-vet exam. I wrote down everything I could think of because I knew I would not be able to remember it while on the phone. I noted Mouse’s Temperature, Pulse, Respiration, Capillary Refill Time, Hydration test, as well as gum color, overall temperament, and finally the wound itself.
I placed the call to South Hills Veterinary clinic and left a message with the switchboard. As we waited for the vet to call us back I gave all of us a dose of Rescue Remedy. Scot woke up Jane Armour our coach, and told her what was happening. Jane came out to the barn to be with us and help us with Mouse.
Thankfully Mouse was a very reliable and forgiving patient. He stood quietly while I blanketed him and started doing Ttouch ear work for shock. I was grateful for all of the Tteam and ttouch training and about learning the value of ear work for shock and emergency situations. I was amazed that I was just able to do the ear work in kind of a Zen like state and then pause re-take the vitals and then go back to other ttouchs for comfort and warmth while remaining calm, cool and focused.
Dr. Catherine Young responded to the emergency call and was at our farm in less than half an hour, she was examining the wound by 10:00 pm. Dr. Young was impressed with the fact that the wound had not yet started to swell and that Mouse was doing so well and seemed to calmly accept all of the exam procedures. We all got a shock when Dr. Young used her longest forceps – which were a little over 10” long and was unable to reach the back of the wound – which was dubbed an impalement wound.
I asked Dr. Young some very pressing “what if” type of questions about wounds that enter the chest cavity; as in my limited experience they always seemed fatal. Either the horses succumb to infection, not all the debris is removed and there are large internal abscesses, or other such complications. She confirmed that in her experience a wound such as that can be fatal unless the horse’s is hospitalized and on powerful antibiotics.
As Dr. Young started to cleanse and flush the wound site, Mouse got a little more stressed and uncomfortable so Dr. Young gave him a single dose Banamine for the pain and another Novocain shot a little further away from the wound site. Dr. Young spent the next couple of hours stitching Mouse’s chest back together layer by layer. After she was done stitching she started to tell me what nursing procedures would be needed to expedite the healing process, I made detailed notes on everything she said and then had her go over it to make sure I had not missed anything.
Dr. Young went on to tell us the different stages the wound would likely go through over the next few days with swelling, seepage, and expected pain levels. She started Mouse on antibiotics and told me to come to the office for the rest of medications in the morning. She left our farm at 1:30 am.
As for the nursing care Mouse would be getting Ttouch was on the top of the list. I used ice packs as well as hot and cold packs around the wound twice a day. I did raccoon ttouchs very near the wound and clouded leopard ttouchs in radiating circles away from the wound using both the ice packs and the hot packs. Mouse stood quietly most of the time for his body work. I visualized perfect cellular healing and minimal scarring each and every time I worked with Mouse.
When Dr. Young stopped by to check on Mouse the next day she commented on how well we had done controlling the swelling. She was very happy that all the stitches held and that the swelling was much less than she anticipated. The wound did swell up horribly in my opinion, it was about 1/3 of a basketball in size, but for Dr. Young to be so pleased and say it was much smaller that she thought it would be was a little overwhelming.
The reduce inflammation was likely helped by my friend Sherry. Sherry was able to do a non-invasive form of body work to help the Mouse process and move the large amount of lymph that the wound was producing. This work assisted Mouse in process of healing himself more quickly.
I continued to ttouch Mouse’s whole body every day, both morning and night. Dr. Young told us that the complete healing would probably progress at a rate of about one week for every inch deep it was. So we were looking at 10-12 weeks of healing before Mouse could go back to work at a minimum and barring any complications. She figured I might be able to ride Mouse again in the fall, hopefully by November.
It may sound as though I ttouched the hair right off him, but in reality it kept me busy and quietly focused the entire time I did the twice daily hot or cold packs. When I was able to cold water hose him, I did the hosing in a Ttouch fashion of a circle and a quarter – move a little – another circle and quarter. He was much more accepting of the water in this way. When I would hose the wound straight on – he would get fidgety and move away. I also discovered that the water pressure needed to be much softer for him to be able to relax and enjoy the process.
Once the stitches were removed I added a Python Lift to the mix. I did Python Lifts on the whole front of his chest, making sure that the release was 3-4 times longer than the hold. In the beginning I was able to continue to use the hot packs for the Python Lifts, so it was like Python Lifting a water balloon. It was too much for him to have an Abalone Ttouch and a Python Lift together, so by chunking it down and doing one at a time we developed something that he could enjoy, instead of just tolerate.
As the healing progressed and the swelling receded Mouse was slowly allowed more liberties. In the very beginning we enjoyed hand walking and grazing. As the weeks flew by I began to incorporate some of the Tteam obstacle work into our 45 minute hand walking sessions, this helped both of us have a little more fun and enjoy a slight challenge while learning more hoof-eye coordination and control. It gave him something to think about so he was also more focused and quieter, thus easier to handle.
Near the end of the summer as I contemplated all our missed riding opportunities, I realized that I had experienced an unexpected gift through this experience; our relationship seemed to have deepened over the summer. Our real “silver lining” was I was able to ride Mouse at a walk in late September – which was a full two months ahead of the predicted schedule.