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1 
C H A P T E R 
Hello Weekend 
Twenty-four hours spent at the hospital
I
t was Friday night. 10 p.m. Late February. Across Lexington, theworkweek behind them, regular people were out enjoying them-selves, or tucked in at home, but none o the veterinarians at Rood& Riddle had any such plans. Every year, rom roughly Februarythrough June, the vets are slammed with patients day and night. Inaddition to the usual emergencies — ractures, lacerations, othertraumas — it is oaling season: Mares can have problematic births(called dystocias), usually because oals are in the wrong position— instead o eet and head rst, they can be sideways, upside-down,their heads tucked between their legs as i they can’t ace leavingthe womb. Once out, oals can have contracted legs, neurologicalissues, gut problems. Sometimes a mare hemorrhages or dies romthe strain o giving birth. Mares oten experience colic post-oalingas well, and the spring season brings more colicking or all horsesbecause o changes in weather and because as horses begin eedingon new grass, their oten-delicate digestive systems react. (Colic re-ers to pain caused by the intestinal tract being blocked, bloated, or
(In some cases, identifying details of owners and horses have been changed.)
 
26
HELLO WEEKEND 
irritated or a variety o reasons.) Up at admissions, an emergencycolic case had just arrived.The patient, a smoke-colored mare, was led into a padded stallwhere she collapsed on her side, moaning. Several interns attend-ed to the horse as her owner watched anxiously. A ew momentspassed, and then the mare’s diaphragm was still. “Is she breath-ing?” someone asked. Dr. Sarah Gray pressed her knee into thehorse’s chest; the stimulation got the mare to take a breath. Dr.Alexandra Tracey listened to her heartbeat. It was erratic.All o a sudden, the horse jumped to her eet and barreled towardthe interns, who darted out o the room and shut the heavy doorto keep rom getting trampled. Then the mare collapsed again. Theinterns went back in. (Horses in severe colic will oten collapserom the abdominal pain.)Dr. Rol Embertson, one o the hospital’s surgeons, appeared. Itwas his weekend on call. Even the top veterinarians at the hospitalwork 24/7 in oaling season. One o the interns told him she’d giventhe mare 150 mg o xylazine, a drug or sedation. “What are hermembranes like?” Embertson asked her. He was reerring to themucous membranes visible on a horse’s gums, the color o whichcan be a barometer or how eciently the heart is pumping andoxygenated blood is circulating throughout the body.The membranes were pale pink when the mare was up, within thebubblegum palette o normalcy, but a purplish color when she wasdown. It is unusual or the color to change. The purplish color mightsigniy that she wasn’t oxygenating her blood well when down. Shecould also be heading into septicemia, a potentially deadly condi-tion where bacteria or bacterial toxins invade the bloodstream, inthis case most likely wrought by a strangulated bowel.The horse moaned again. The owner finched. She told Embert-son, “She started (colicking) at ve (p.m.),” and added she’d also
 
27
HELLO WEEKEND 
given the horse substantial pain medication hersel. The mare wasa twenty-one-year-old pasture pet who had always been prone tocolic, sensitive to everything rom changes in weather to deworm-ing, but the owner had never seen her like this. Her colics had al-ways resolved on their own.The horse rose again quickly. Gray’s hand got smacked againstthe wall. Then the mare collapsed and tried to roll, but there wasn’tenough room. “You can’t roll in here, baby,” said Brent Comer,a nursing sta supervisor and tech who had arrived to help out.Then the mare got to her eet again.“Keep her walking,” said Embertson. He also told the internsto give her more xylazine and perorm an ultrasound exam o theabdomen.Embertson was calm as he discussed the situation with the own-er, telling her that they were going through standard diagnosticprocedures to try and gure out the origin o the mare’s colic. Em-bertson is always even, stoic, contained. Caliornians would say
Dr. Rol Embertson was Rood & Riddle’s frst surgeon.
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bluegrassbelle

I'm not a horse person, but I am an eclectic reader and this excerpt caught my attention. Of course, living among Bluegrass horse farms nourishes an interest in the subject. But this chapter promises a book that will educate any open mind and touch any listening heart. I'm already deep into reading the rest of the book and have not been disappointed.

reply08 / 09 / 2009
bluegrassbelle

this is the review I posted

08 / 09 / 2009
joanhal

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The writer has opened windows to the blood, sweat and tears of the equine world. I'm a city girl with a fear of big animals, but I so identified with the stories told - of the horses, the vets whose lives are totally enmeshed in their work and in the complexities of caring for these noble animals. Guttman has done a superb job of weaving the animal stories and the people stories - and the relationships between them. I loved Marching Orders and wept at the description of this inmate with the horse called The Viking. Don't miss this book!

reply07 / 26 / 2009
bookmom

Wow. Powerful and entertaining. Can't wait to read the book.

reply07 / 05 / 2009
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