Learn to Lose and Learn to Grieve

November 23, 2012, my world came crashing down.  That's what I felt when I lost my beautiful girl to colic.  For those of you that don't know, colic in horses is extreme abdominal pain caused by intestinal gas or obstruction in the intestines.  It is preventable, but there really is no warning for it.  I was away over the weekend of November 16-17.  Sunday morning I was woken up by a call from our barn saying Bailey was colicking.  I automatically assumed the worst.  For a while we thought she was okay and just needed to drink enough to get things moving again, but after hours of her constantly trying to roll, we took her to a clinic a few hours away.  The vet took ultra sounds and none the less, her surgery began.

Most horses that colic don't colic severely enough to need surgery.  And for those that do, there's a decent chance for full recovery.  Bailey's case wasn't that easy.  Her small intestine was caught between her liver and a blood vessel, and had to be ever so carefully pulled through the tiny slit.  The vet found one small 4 inch section of intestine that remained pinched after being freed from the "trap", and feared that he would have to do a resection of the small intestine.  He decided against it because it was one more complication to an already excruciatingly long surgery.

That was on Sunday November 18.  On Friday November 23 at 9:40 pm my beautiful Bailey left me for heaven.  She needed another surgery to have a chance to live, but survival rates after a second colic surgery are slim.  I  couldn't put her through anymore.  She was tired, and she was done.  It was all I could do for her, and it killed me.  I never thought something like this would take her away from me.

I remember reading the message.  "We tried to keep her going as long as we could.  She was a special girl".  I screamed I cried.  I was so angry.  I still am.  I miss you baby, my Soul Sister