Day 4
First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of my roommate Sabrina. By virtue of being the only resident in this house that is not mortally terrified of bugs, she has in this evening alone vanquished no fewer than 18 stink bugs between our bedroom and the towel bureau located in the hallway, thereby making our humble lodgings a much less scary place in which to sleep. I wish I had pictures of the three of us crowding around her as she reached upward toward the hall curtain (she’s the tallest) with her Weapons of Mass Bug Imprisonment – a used Gatorade bottle and a folded sheet of notebook paper – carefully maneuvering the creature… then BAM! It falls to the ground and all three of us shriek like Girl Scouts on a camping trip.
The biggest thing that happened today was Persian’s colic. He only ate a mouthful of his feed this morning, and Brittney was called out when Haley and Lara noted an alarming respiratory rate and could not detect any gut sounds on either side of his abdomen. We put him in one of the large stalls, with Maura (his girlfriend) in the adjoining one to keep him company. The vet was out in what seemed like no time. He sedated Persian and tubed him (for you non-horse people, he put a long, thin tube onto Persian’s nostril and snaked it into his stomach so that he could pump in some water and mineral oil) to get things moving through him in case he has an impaction. He suspected that Persian's gut motility had been adversely affected by a combination of the hot sun and his warm coat (since we've had a few warm days).
By early evening Persian had pooped very little, so the vet returned to do a rectal palpation, in order to determine whether he had an impaction. He removed two handfuls of manure, and reported that while he felt some hardened stool, the organs around the colon didn’t seem distended or crowded. He re-tubed him with electrolytes (to encourage him to drink and to draw water into his digestive tract), a laxative (no explanation needed), and water. Caitlyn (I don’t know if that’s how she spells it) and Haley both took the opportunity to love Persian extra hard, hugging his face and rubbing his ears, since in his un-doped up state he is resistant to affection of any kind.
Sabrina, Elise, Evie and I had to check on him at 10 and give him his Banamine paste, and we have to check on him again at 12 and 3:30, taking his vitals, listening to his gut sounds, looking for poop, and checking the level of his water bucket. Evie and Elise are checking on him at 12, and Sabrina and I are going out there at 3:30. If he poops we have permission to give him a small helping of bran mash and soaked alfalfa cubes.
In other news, I volunteered to groom Walker today and have decided that he is a douche canoe and almost every other horse here is closer to being my favorite than he is. He’ll be like that douche canoe that told me that I’m unfit for dating because I don’t have a facebook page – nice to look at, but don’t freaking come near me, you stupid… dirty… stupid… DOUCHE CANOE. I do, however, still like Wall-E (yeah, he was named after the Disney character). I groomed him in the afternoon and aside from trying to lip at me he was pretty well-behaved.
One more thing that I wanted to mention in my last blog but forgot: I have experienced this extremely uncomfortable feeling that is difficult to describe. It happens three or four times a day and is something between homesickness and claustrophobia. It only lasts a minute or two each time it happens, but when it does I become extremely uncomfortable and anxious like I wish I could teleport home for just a few minutes to recharge myself, take a few deep breaths of Ohio air and see my mom’s face. I wonder if it’s some kind of generalized anxiety disorder (I sound like a hypochondriac now). I’ve felt it before, but never with this kind of frequency.
Maybe I should try Skyping with Mom tomorrow.
FIRST DAY OFF TOMORROW! YAAAYYYYYYY!!!!
I may try to get into Baltimore.

♥
SM