How it ended

If Mark had been home, I think I would have preferred to have Ladybug put down in her own paddock and buried there.  But I couldn't let her stay in pain while I called around trying to find someone to come do the burying.  So I called Torri and she came and helped me hook up the trailer and then drove us over to LSU (she knew how to get into that large animal area on a Sunday night).  I am so grateful that she came and stayed with me through it all.  I was having trouble focusing on anything except Bug - not hooking up the trailer or driving to LSU or much of anything else.  It all seemed pretty unreal at the time.

When we finally got the trailer hooked up, Ladybug loaded right up without the least objection, just as she always did.  (I think I kind of hoped she'd object.)  And once we got over there, she backed right out and actually seemed to perk right up, whinnying at the other horses as we walked down that long, long hall inside the building.   Once we got to the destination in there, they let me spend a little more time alone with her.  Then in a while, I led her up into that little "padded cell" type room - the same place where they sedate horses for surgery.  She stood against that padded back wall until they did the first sedation injection, then they swung out that hinged padded wall on the right below.  It's about 4 or 5 feet high.  She was standing between it and that back wall until she went down.  Then they swung that right side wall back into place and she collapsed out onto her side. 

They let me stay there with her for a good while - until it felt to me like her spirit had gone from there.  I kept her mane and tail, and her ashes will be returned to me in a week or two, they said.  It may sound odd, but I think I'll feel a lot better once her ashes at least are home with me again. 

And what brought this all about?  I don't know.  When I went out to feed the horses on Sunday morning, Bug was not just laying down, but was sprawled completely flat in her stall.

I took this picture later in the day, but this is exactly how she looked when I first went out there in the morning.

She usually did lay down at night and sleep in her stall, but it was more than obvious that she was not merely sleeping - she was sick!  And when I went into the stall she didn't even try to get up!  That had NEVER happened.  And when I knelt down next to her, she laid her head back down on the floor and heaved a deep breath - almost like she thought now that I was there maybe she wouldn't be in pain any longer.  I was completely panic-strickened.  I called LSU immediately and the doctor I talked to said she would be out within an hour (she had to go first to the vet school and pick up Bug's records and a vet assistant).  

Just before they got there, I got her to stand up, but she stood with her head down except when she would swing around and look at her tummy.  It was obviously hurting her.

These pictures were also taken later in the day -  once I was able think, but before I realized how bad it really was.

The doctor on call was one I had not met previously, but she turned out to be very good - and very understanding.  On her first visit in the morning, she checked Bug's lower intestine, then flushed out her stomach.  

The doctor is on the right with one of the vet students along to help.

Bug had eaten her supper at 6 PM on Saturday evening and it was about 10 AM when her stomach was flushed - 16 hours later - and the feed was virtually all still there -- a sign that there was probably a blockage not far past her stomach.  Not good.  But the vet gave her a pain injection and some sort of oil stuff, and said to call her back in the afternoon and let her know if Bug was back to her normal self. 

I stayed out there in the stall with her all day.  She kept laying her head down and getting wood shavings in her mane and even her eyes, so I tried to keep a towel under her head whenever I could.  It did seem to make her a bit more comfortable.  She laid still for longer periods of time without thrashing.

But about noon, though, she began "throwing up" . . . not something horses do.  But she would snort and then liquid would spray out of both nostrils and run down the wall a good two feet away!  That would happen every two minutes or so.  I called the vet back.  She didn't return my call at the time (because the answering service hadn't reached her, I learned later), but when I called back again about 3 or so she called back right away.  As soon as I told her about the "vomiting" she said she would be right over.  And she was.  

When she came back, she put that tube back down Bug's nose into her stomach and all kinds of fluid came flowing out.  So she left the tube in place so that the fluid wouldn't come out Bug's nose and interfere with her breathing.  Then she took a syringe and pulled a fluid sample from Bug's abdomen.  

The vet assistant is filling the test tubes after the vet put in a needle to drain out some abdominal fluid.

The abdominal fluid that they collected should normally be a pale yellow.  It wasn't.  It was an orange color -- an indication that there was an opening somewhere in her intestines contaminating the abdominal fluid.  That meant that the only options were surgery -- $5000+ and a painful recovery . . . IF she could recover.  The vet told me the odds were about 50/50 - maybe not even that at her age (23).   That's when I knew for sure how catastrophic the situation  really was.  From that point on, I felt almost numb.  It was very hard to focus enough to make the decision.  I kept thinking about how awful it would be not to have her with us.  But given the pain I knew she was in, I felt I had to allow them to euthanize her before that intestinal problem got even worse.  And I was told it would.  I took this video in the morning before the vet came.  Then this one was taken in the afternoon before the vet came back for the second time.  She obviously feels even worse, even though she was then on significant amounts of pain medication.

So after that awful abdominal fluid test result, I called Torri back.  I am so thankful that she was just over in University Club - less than 10 minutes away.   I don't think I could have functioned enough to get through it all without her.  She not only helped me through it, but she helped reassure me that I was making the right decision.  I feel sure now (now that I can think, and now that I've looked back at the photos and videos I took all day) that I did do the right thing, but at the time, I was having a very hard time with it.  All I could think about was how awful it would be to lose her.  But in the end, I had to do the thing that was best for her since she was obviously in absolute agony.  It would have been so wrong to let her suffer.  But it has been completely devastating to lose her.  I thought it was awful to lose the dogs I've lost, but this was not the same.  This was very much like losing a family member.  

I'm posting this so that I won't have to explain anything to anyone in person.  I can't talk about it.  I don't dare even allow myself to think about it while I'm out in pubic.  I just fall apart.  I guess over time that won't be true.  But right now? . . . please don't ask me to talk about it.  I just can't.