Healing a Horse
A
true story about a veterinarian’s first case.
“Doctor
Rugh, can you come right out?”
My hand shook as I held the telephone receiver.
I had
waited a long time to hear those words—ever since
I was a little girl and first knew
I wanted to be a veterinarian. At
the age of twenty-four, I had just started my first job
as a large-animal veterinarian.
The caller, Mr. Lendall, told me that his daughters’ horse had a wooden stake jammed up into her hind leg. I couldn’t believe my ears. This was my first case. It wasn’t quite what I had expected.
As I got out of my car at the Lendall house, I hoped I didn’t look as nervous as I felt. Mr. Lendall and his daughters––Robin, twelve, and Lisa, thirteen––were clustered around Crystal, a pretty Appaloosa. Crystal was holding her right rear leg stiffly out to the side. On the ground lay a three-foot piece of tomato stake with a splintered end. I knew that a piece of the stake might still be in the wound. The thought of it made me feel a little sick.
Robin and Lisa told me that two-year-old Crystal was their first horse. She was going to be their 4-H project. I thought fondly of my own first horse, Paladin. I’d gotten him when I was eleven, and he had been my 4-H project. I knew how much Crystal meant to Robin and Lisa.
Crystal stood quietly as I gave her an injection to calm her. On the inside of her right leg, near her belly, was a large ragged wound. Gently, I reached up into the wound, horrified that my hand, wrist, and part of my forearm could fit into the gaping hole. My fingers touched a jagged piece of wood.
Crystal shifted her feet. If she kicked, I wouldn’t be able to move out of the way. “Whoa, now. Easy, girl,” I murmured. The horse sighed and stood still.
Where had the other end of the stake gone? If it had lodged in the muscles of the hindquarters, there was a chance for recovery. If it had gone in at an angle, deep into her belly, Crystal probably would not survive. Inching my hand upward, I grasped the stake and carefully wiggled it. The muscles on top of Crystal’s hindquarters moved as the wood moved under them. The stake had missed her abdomen.
Removing the stake would be safer and easier for me if I gave Crystal an anesthetic. But the anesthetic would make her lie down, and any movement could be dangerous for her. I had to remove the stake while the horse was standing. I pulled—gently at first, then harder. Nothing happened. I gently wiggled the stake and then pulled. It moved a few inches. Repeating the process, I slowly removed an eighteen-inch piece of wood from the wound.
I began to clean the injury. “I’m not going to sew this up,” I explained to Robin and Lisa. “I’ll put in a large tube and sew it to the skin.” The tube would keep Crystal’s wound open so that it could drain as it healed. I would also flush medicine into the wound through this tube.
“I wish I could tell you that Crystal will be OK,” I said. “But her muscles have been so badly damaged that she might always be lame.” Those last five words seemed to echo around us. “I’ll do everything I can,” I said, trying to sound confident and reassuring.
My mind was full of questions as I drove away. My first case wasn’t like anything I had seen in veterinary school. Had I treated it correctly? What if I’d forgotten to do something? What if Crystal didn’t heal and it was my fault? Why did I ever want to become a veterinarian anyway?
I saw Crystal and the girls often over the next two months. Crystal was surprisingly cooperative for such a young horse. She would stand still and wait patiently while I replaced her drainage tube and gave her injections of antibiotics to prevent infection.
Robin and Lisa worked hard to help their horse get well. Twice a day—every day—they cleaned the wound and walked Crystal so that her muscles would heal properly. They groomed her. They petted her. They coaxed her to eat.
Slowly,
Crystal recovered. On the outside, all that remained of
her injury was a thick scar the size of a nickel. But was
she sound? After months of waiting,
it was time to find out.
I
watched Crystal walk as Robin led her. There was no trace
of a limp—all four feet hit the ground squarely and
securely. When I asked Robin to make Crystal trot, the horse
tossed her head and skittered sideways. When she finally
straightened out, there was no irregularity in her gait.
I watched the movement of Crystal’s head for the lift
that occurs when a horse steps with a sore hind leg: no
lift. I listened for the rhythmic hoof beats of a sound
horse: perfect. Crystal was completely sound.
In that moment, on that brisk fall day, I suddenly knew why I had become a veterinarian. My reward was right in front of me: Crystal, trotting freely––and her young owners, bouncing with excitement. I had helped. I had made a difference. What a feeling!
