Emergency Surgery

In October of 1999, my 18y/o pony, Bertie, went lame.

no one knew why he had gone lame as he had never been lame since we'd had

him.  The vet was called and Bertie was put on a weeks box rest. No

improvement.... after another 2 weeks box rest....no improvement. The vet

decided to investigate further by doing x-rays and nerve blocks. The x-rays

showed nothing and the nerve blocks made him less lame but not sound. His

lameness was a mystery. Bertie was turned out with his racehorse friends

when he returned to the yard and promptly careered around imitating desert

orchid. 

That evening he could not move. It took half an hour for him to hop

3 legged a short distance from the field. More box rest and more x rays

proved inconclusive. In December we left Bertie on box rest in the capable

hands of friends while we went on a two-week holiday to Thailand over

Christmas. We rang the yard to see how he was getting along from Singapore

and he said the vets thought they knew what was wrong but nothing to worry

about so don’t ruin the rest of the holiday sort of thing. 

We arrived back to England on New Years Eve very early and suffering from severe jet lag. The vets called and said to bring Bertie to them immediately.

We arrived and poor Bertie hopped down the ramp of the trailer. (We were

having to borrow a friends ifor williams as our old banger of a

trailer was in disrepair).

They took some x rays and the vets disappeared for a while. They came back

and said that Bertie had broken his long pastern bone in his off fore. We

were devastated. We didn’t know what was going to happen to him. The vets

said there were 3 options.....

- to have him put down there and then,

- to have his leg in plaster for months and be suspended in his stable

- or to send him to a hospital in Newmarket for emergency surgery.

We decided to give this fantastic little family horse a chance and we took

him to Newmarket on 5th January. They operated on him that day and we had a

phone call in the afternoon saying that he had recovered from the

anaesthetic and the operation had gone well.

Almost a week late we were allowed to go and pick him up. The day before we

went to pick him up, our friends rang and said that their trailer that we

had been borrowing had been stolen from their yard overnight. 

It was chaos. We were ringing any trailer or hire company in the area and

no one would lend us an ifor williams. In the end, dad came home with a

brand new ifor williams trailer which we got ready with hay and straw. The

next morning we set off early and arrived in Newmarket at about 9am. Bertie

was overjoyed to see us and we were so happy he looked better in himself

and he didn’t look in so much pain.

We loaded him up and I noticed as we walked up the ramp, Bertie was no

longer lame although he had his leg in a robert jones bandage.

Bertie went straight in his box when we got back and he was stuck in there

for 3months. After 3 months we began to walk him out in hand and let him

graze on the verges etc.

We must have walked miles in the months that Bertie was recovering!

We sectioned off a small part of his paddock for him to go in so he could

graze and be outside and be with his friends near by. We started to ride

Bertie in may and he has improved no end. Writing this in January 2001, a

year after Bertie's operation, I have moved to Devon from Northampton and

Bertie is enjoying hacking, racing around like desert orchid again, and we

have now begun to jump again. We are only doing small fences like hay bales

Etc.

Everyone has been amazed at Bertie's recovery. Who would have believed that

so much stuff could go wrong for us and him?

my e-mail: sweeet.dude@esweeet.com

Thanx for reading this true story. Sarah Hall

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