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Connie & Dare

    I lost my Connie a few days ago. I have a hard time talking about it still, but writing can be cathartic, so here goes…

     I lost her to postoperative myopathy after emergency colic surgery at Cornell. She colicked badly and I took her to Cornell where we decided on surgery to try to save her life. The surgery went relatively well — they were able to untwist a portion of her large intestine that had twisted on itself. However, she developed postoperative myopathy, which can occur after a period of recumbency with general anesthesia (basically, she was laying on her back for 3 hours), and affected horses are usually unable to rise. If they do rise, they show severe tremor, weakness and easy falling. Serum muscle enzyme levels indicate gross muscle damage and both fore- and hindlimbs are affected. From WikiVet:

     “Post Operative Myopathy occurs most commonly in large well muscled horses, evident only when the horse tries to stand upon recovery and is a serious cause of post operative anaesthetic morbidity. It usually affects the dependent muscles during surgery and is thought to be caused by ischaemic damage to underperfused muscles (local deficiency of blood supply produced by vasoconstriction or local obstacles to the arterial flow). Clinical signs vary depending on severity but include: mild lameness to inability to stand; hard, swollen and painful muscles; extreme distress; sweating; difficulty breathing; restlessness. Treatment is symptomatic and includes analgesia, sedation and diuresis. Prevention is the best management for this condition and should include preventing hypotension, correct positioning of the horse during surgery and appropriate and correct padding used.” (Emphasis mine.)

Unfortunately, I do not think Cornell is equipped for draft horses. Connie weighed a fit 1828 pounds, according to their scale. But I lay no blame. I’m not sure what went wrong, or if it could have even been fixed or averted. But I will say that the surgical team tried for hours to get her on her feet, to no avail — and when it was over, were teary-eyed and visibly upset by the turn of events. I finally spoke to Connie, touched her, looked her in the eye, and asked her what she wanted to do. She was covered with sweat and physically spent, and in a lot of pain. Bless her and her fighting spirit, she just didn’t want to give up, but she was just so tired…and I gave her permission to go if she needed to. Within minutes of my decision to help her cross over, she was dying. So I spared her that last few minutes of agony, and I now only wish I had released her sooner.

I am shellshocked and distraught by the very unexpected death of my beautiful mare. I gave her every chance to live, but she didn’t. I spent thousands of dollars and long, sleepless hours fighting the good fight, but I still lost her in the end. I have been unreachable since Wednesday evening, as I process my deep and unrelenting grief. I apologize to those of you waiting for a phone call or email from me, but I needed my space. I’ll be back to work soon enough, and I appreciate your patience.

     She became the pride of my farm, a 17.3H registered black Percheron mare with a queenly presence and a gentle disposition. Her sire was Maxwell’s Doc, a horse who’s quality I knew well, having worked with him at Rocking Horse Manor in Pompey for a couple of years. I taught Connie to ground drive and carry a rider before she was three years old.

     She was artificially inseminated by Northernhemisphere in 1999 and bore me a beautiful chestnut colt on April 14, 2000 (pictured above). Dare is registered with the American Warmblood Society and the Performance Horse Registry. He was the only foal she would ever bear, but that never mattered. She was my girl, my Connie Lee, and I loved her just for being who she was — irrepressable and irreplaceable.

     Those of you who know me know that my horses are like my children. Her loss is a huge hole in my heart. A great light has gone out of my life. Some spirits just leave an enormous void when they leave us. Connie was one of those spirits.

     Run free, my beauty. There is no pain where you are now. I’ll see you again.

– CLM