From Near Death T
By Denise Rowe
THE HOUR-LONG DRIVE TO THE UNIVERSITY VETERINARY SCHOOL GAVE ME TIME TO PREPARE MYSELF FOR THE WORST: A DEAD HORSE AND BIG BILLS. I ARRIVED TO FIND A VERY SICK FOAL WITH IVS IN HER NECK AND BUCKETS OF HER DAM’S MILK NEARBY THAT SHE COULDN’T BE CONVINCED TO SWALLOW. BUT AT LEAST SHE WAS ALIVE.
wo days earlier, on Memorial Day 2009, my husband and I delivered our one-week-old filly, Radiance COF, to the Equine Teaching Unit at North Carolina
State University. This was a filly we’d been dreaming of: her breeding was excellent, Royal Prince x Contucci, and her personality was a big one. We nicknamed her “Boogie” because she was always moving as fast as she could, right from day one.
DARK DAYS 2009 was not a good year for our small breeding operation at Century Oaks Farm in Timberlake, North Carolina. Boogie was the fourth and only living foal from our four breedings initiated in 2008. Of the four, one mare reabsorbed, one aborted with twins, one delivered a live foal that had to be euthanized due to a very rare condition known as colon atresia. Finally, with Boogie, we thought our challenges were over. But now, after not quite a week of health,
Photos of “Boogie” on these two pages are courtesy of Denise Rowe
she was very ill with an unidentifiable liver infection. Boogie had already had two plasma transfers to
booster her antibody titers but they were not enough to ward off the infection. Soon she was lethargic and losing interest in nursing. Antibiotics failed to make any improvement in her condition and by the morning of the Memorial Day holiday, she was even more listless and depressed. Our veterinarian, Dr. Cindy Kimbrell, advised us to act quickly to get intensive care for Boogie. So we loaded her and her mother, Crescent Moon COF, into the trailer for the hour-plus trip to Raleigh. The day was already scorching even though it was
barely noon as we arrived at the NCSU vet school. Once I checked in, several veterinarian assistants and two third year students followed me out to the trailer to bring mare and foal into the facility. One assistant was pushing a cart. I was informed that the cart was for the sick filly. I chuckled as I informed them that I didn’t think Boogie was going to fold up those long legs and be very cooperative about that ride. She was not quite that near death, not yet! I was right about that—Boogie weakly followed her
dam into the facility. Once inside, I helplessly watched her struggle as they laid her down on a huge mat and clipped her neck to insert an IV line and took blood to start blood chemistry tests. Occasionally she would give a pleading whinny for her mother and later when she was back on her feet, she made a brief half-hearted, comfort-seeking attempt to nurse. Finally mare and foal were settled into a clean stall.
A NEW DAY DAWNS As I became familiar with the extremely qualified staff of the equine veterinary teaching unit, I soon realized that my foal was in very competent hands. At first, they weren’t sure if she would be able to overcome the liver infection as they gave her mega doses of fluids and antibiotics. But slowly, as the week progressed, so did Boogie. By the end of the week, she was feeling well enough to go outside for walks with her mother. I watched in amazement as this tiny filly boldly followed her mother through a maze of noisy aisle ways to romp in the sun and grass oblivious to her close call with death. By now everyone who had met Boogie knew she was a special filly. Several of the
32 July/August 2011
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