She Stuck Her Arm WHERE?

I am a bit delayed in blogging this piece of news because I was too traumatized until now to find any humor in it whatsoever, but looking back...

It was Saturday evening.  Greg, Brooke, and I were at the farm.  I had planned to feed the horses while Greg and Brooke tried out their new behind-the-bike trailer: a wild and crazy Saturday night in the Holler household, to be sure!

While Greg spent  "five minutes" attaching the bike trailer to his bike for the first time, I went up to the horse pastures to start the evening feeding routine.  The horses heard us down at the barn and were already waiting impatiently around the gates for me to place their tubs of pellets in front of their big mouths attached to overweight equine physiques.

I set about preparing and serving their feed as quickly as possible...to the sounds of their irritated wickers and pawing hooves.  After listening to/watching them rudely biting, kicking, squealing, and fighting their way to individual tubs of feed, for a while, all that I heard was slurping and grinding of teeth, as they happily inhaled their food.

Immediately upon finishing, Finn slowly laid down with a groan, right in the mud.  It was unusual because he didn't roll; he just hunkered down.  I went into the pasture to check on him, and I got him to stand up, but he immediately buckled at the knees to go down again.  I shooed him, knowing that he was beginning to colic.  He plodded around--head low, stopping to kick at his stomach and swish his tail.  Not good.

I got out the halter and lead rope and proceeded to walk him around the farm to try to ease his gastrointestinal distress.  We walked for almost an hour before it became apparent that the vet would have to make an emergency trip to the farm to give Finn a shot of Banamine...at least.

Not only, in this situation was I fearful of the outcome for my sweet, talented, beloved (not to mention, only-horse-my-size) Finny...I was fearful of the expense of the emergency farm call.

Sidenote:  Having kept horses for more than 20 years now, I have never had worse luck with the horses' health than I have in the past few months.  We have spent more money on their veterinary care since January than we have in the past 5 years combined!

Forty-five minutes later, the doctor arrived.  She listened to Finn's heart, checked his respiration, and listened to his gut sounds.  She agreed that he was colicking, and she administered a shot of Banamine.  After this comfort measure, she decided to do an internal exam to make sure that there were no impactions in the palpable parts of Finn's intestinal tract.

She took off her coat.  She took off her wedding rings.  She put on a plastic glove that went the whole way up to her shoulder.  In an attempt to soothe the horse--who was surely having misgivings about this scenario--she told us all that she has very thin arms, and that the other vets in her practice call her "Olive Oyl" for this reason.

Well, she proceeded to stick her entire (albeit skinny) arm all of the way into Finn, via his rectum!  At one point, she asked for a step stool and a snorkel.  I kid you not.  I was only able to provide the step stool.

Thankfully, she did not find an impaction.  She gave Finn a dose of Gastrogaurd (probiotics) and told me to call her in the morning.

I went up to the house, where Greg and Brooke had been waiting for me for several hours, and relayed the story to everyone.  Greg was incredulous, "She stuck her arm...WHERE?"

I replied with the scientific response: "Up his butt."

"Up to her shoulder!"  Mike chimed in, clearly impressed.

"No way!  She put her whole arm up his butt?!  If I would have known this was going down, I would have been out there taking pictures..."

Then, ever the penny-pincher, "Up to her shoulder, huh?  Well, that sounds expensive."

(A moment of silent contemplation for all.)