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Re: [RC] colic and surgery - rdcarrie

I'd have to agree with Mike.  My 19 yr old gelding had colic surgery last fall...the day hurricane Rita hit (hauling him first to the vet and then to the surgery center during the hurricane was interesting to say the least!).  He had a hyper muscularized section of small intestine...vet said he'd never seen anything like it, and that it had to have gotten that way over several years (which would have explained his minor colic events over the previous couple of years).  He had that piece resected, and also a section of large intestine returned to its proper location.  He healed up fine, and is his old self...full of piss and vinegar, now 20 years old.  I'm trying to find time to get him conditioned and back on the trails for at least some LDs, since he loves the sport so darned much.  I'd make the same decision again in a heartbeat.  The vet was amazed at how quickly he recovered, since he said that older horses tend to recover more slowly, until I reminded him that this was an endurance horse...and he said that that explained it...that a horse that has led an athletic life has a huge edge in handling a major surgery like this.
 
Dawn in East Texas
and Chivas (I wanna do more rides!!!)
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Maul <mmaul@xxxxxxxxx>
To: ridecamp <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Mon, 8 May 2006 10:24:42 -0500
Subject: [RC] colic and surgery

In response to Angie's note "For the money, what the horse goes through, and the prognosis, I don't think it's worth it. Maybe I'd back out if there and have to make the call. I guess we'll see." 
 
I think it depends a lot on things you can't judge ahead of time. My 17 year old gelding coliced on the way to a ride. we were about 500 miles from home. I tried local help and a clinic but ended up driving back to Texas A&M for surgery. 
 
They opened him up - found that the "pelvic flexure" had flopped over and was the reason for the colic. They put it back in place and closed him up. I got him back in a little over 2 days and with the schedule the vet gave me - did a 50 mile ride 90 days later. Since then he's done another 1400 miles and reached 4,000 last year. This year we are working on 5,000. 120 days after - the vet could not even find the incision. I checked his progress regularly during the 90 days with the vet to see if there were any problems. 
 
If there's a resection - then it changes things of course. But you can't know that ahead of time. Time makes a difference. He had surgery within 12 hours of when I found the problem. 
 
The university was very reasonable about cost. I told them ahead of time it was out of pocket for me. 
 
Mike 
 
 
 
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Replies
[RC] colic and surgery, Michael Maul