Eight days. That's how long our mini horse, Hank, went without passing a single pile of manure. On…read moreday eight, Chaparral Veterinary Medical Center told us it was time to put him down if we weren't going to operate. We took him home instead.
Here's the part that still keeps me up at night: Hank never should have made it that far. At the 48-hour mark -- when standard care calls for a laxative on an impacted horse -- they did nothing. Why? Because we asked for a cost breakdown. That was enough for them to assume we had "money issues" and stop short of giving our horse the treatment he needed. That's our legal right in Arizona, a written treatment plan, but it was refused and used against us. Instead of doing everything possible for Hank, they sent my husband home with meds, wheeled the x-ray machine back out of the room not even offering an x-ray anymore, and made comments about our finances.
A few days later, Hank ended up in ICU, where they billed us another $3,800 on top of the $1,000 we already paid for IV and drugs. Meanwhile, the pressure to do surgery was nonstop -- even knowing minis only have about a 50% survival rate post op.
So we made the hardest decision yet: we took Hank home. We refused to let his story end there.
For 27 hours straight, we did everything we could think of. We walked him every single hour through the night. We massaged his belly, worked his legs to his tummy, rubbed pressure points including the one under his tail, gave mineral oil in applesauce, and even loaded him in a trailer to "drive like a bat out of hell," just like an old-school vet advised. We refused to give up when everyone else already had.
And then, on day nine, the miracle happened. At almost 1 p.m., Hank passed his first manure -- a pile big enough to fill half a milk carton. By 3:35 p.m., he passed a softball-sized pile, then a baseball-sized one. After nine days of nothing, he finally showed us he still wanted to fight.
He's still standing.
He's still fighting.
And he's still proving that sometimes, the experts aren't always right. We were laughed at, disrespected, food chomped in our ear while Dr Moyer laughed and said we wouldnt get updates if we called, and worst we were guilt-tripped by people we were paying to save him. They told us "no" to extra walks, "no" to updates, and "no" to hope unless we paid for surgery. But the truth is -- Hank's progress happened because we never gave up on him.
This is a reminder to every animal owner: advocate for your animals. Ask questions. Don't let anyone make you feel small for doing what's right. And don't forget that sometimes, love and persistence are stronger than medicine.
Keep praying for Hank -- my little fighter who said, "Don't give up on me just yet." Is proving why sometimes you just gotta believe
P.S. we know how Dr. Moyer is a picture or it didn't happen type person, as she didn't wanna believe that he had little diarrhea on our walk on Sunday, so we took pictures of all the piles that have come out today! Hank the fighter said "that's how it's done"
And thanks for calling the other providers to "warn them"... very professional. We will see what the board thinks of all this.
#veterinarymedicine #horsecolic #colicrecovery #horse #minihorse #drmoyer
