Sometimes bad beginnings can have happy endings. Shortly after I got Dixie I went out to the barn and she had a gigantic cut on her face. It was right along the ridge of her cheek bone a couple inches below her left eye, about 3 inches long. It looked bad, but Mrs. Brenda didn’t seem too concerned. I cleaned it, turned her out, and my mom came to pick me up. With two older brothers, school, and lots of after school activities (not to mention I still couldn’t drive yet) it was a few days before I got back out to the barn. When I eventually arrived to ride my horse, she was about half dead. The cut on her face was severely infected and a thick white puss was draining from her eye and nostril. A normally spirited and moody mare had her head hung low in a completely submissive manner. I gave Mrs. Brenda “the look.” The one that said – WHY DIDN’T YOU TAKE CARE OF IT?! AND IF YOU COULDN’T TAKE CARE OF IT, YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST CALLED TO LET ME KNOW MY HORSE WOULD SOON DIE FROM INFECTION IF I DIDN’T GET OUT TO TAKE CARE OF HER!!!!!! Mrs. Brenda knew what “the look” meant and she just looked back at me with her hot pink Wet n’ Wild lipstick and shook her head. She said, “you didn’t come out to take care of it. You might want to have a vet come out.” Really?! Thanks for the memo Brenda!!!
Dr. Varner came out and cleaned the infectious wound. He sewed it up and put a rubber tube in it meant for draining. I was told to squirt medicine through the tube to clean and disinfect. Mrs. Brenda had made it obvious that she wanted no part in this. Dixie was, after all, my horse. So every night my mom and I would drive out to the barn to care for Dixie. My mom would chase 18 hard, gigantic horse pills around the inside of a plastic bucket with the end of a hammer in attempts to crush them for Dixie’s dinner. While she did the pharmacy work I nursed Dixie and cleaned her wound. The mare who basically hated me a week before now had no energy or will to argue. Horses are very intuitive, and I think she knew the painful process of cleaning was imperative if she ever wanted to get well. After a week things were not looking any better as puss continued to drain from every orifice possible in her head. Dr. Varner came back out and flushed the wound. This time he found bone chips. Poor Dixie had cracked her cheekbone! The process continued for weeks – my mom crushed pills, I took care of Dixie, and Dr. Varner flushed out bone chips 3 different times before she was finally healed. When it was all said and done, Dixie had a scar on her face that added to her already intrinsic personality, and I had a bond with a mare who had seemed impossible to bond with. I was no longer just another girl to Dixie – I was her girl.
Lesson for the day: There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and if you persistent to the end you may just find that the light at the end of the tunnel was even better than the light at the beginning.
Soli deo gloria,
Sarah
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