The Bunch Celebrate T's Bday and Have To Pay For An Emergency Vet Call To Euthanize Our Horse

Happy birthday!

T was really excited for his birthday. The first thing we did IMMEDIATELY after feeding the animals in the morning was open presents, which was followed by making "fancy" scrambled eggs. Fancy scrambled eggs are 1.) Plentiful. I think we used 12 eggs for only 3 people that eat eggs! 2.) They include sauteed onions and peppers. 3.) They have lots of cheese and some salsa. He also wanted orange juice. I usually don't buy any juice because they contain so much sugar, but I will as a birthday treat. We then went to church. After church, we went by a 24 hour speciality donut store and indulged in some speciality donuts like strawberry shortcake, cookies and cream, nutter butter, etc. They were super yummy. T then wanted to go to an antique store to look for some new coins. He started collecting coins about a year ago and has invested quite a bit into a pretty impressive collection. Right now he has a book for the 1800's he is trying to fill. He actually found about 4 coins he wanted. We came home after that to make pizza and watch the new Indiana Jones movie and eat ice cream cake.

However, when we pulled up the driveway we noticed the horse laying out in the hot sun with her legs straight out in front of her. Not particularly alarmed YET. She has very occasionally sun bathed liked that, but normally prefers to cross her feet and rest her head on them. She looks like a dog and it's pretty cute. I walked out to the pasture gate to let them into they back yard to graze. Normally by now she is up and waiting impatiently for me to let them out. Today she did not move. I thought maybe she was asleep so I yelled out "IRIS". Nothing. Now I'm alarmed. This is not right and I yell for D to come out. Iris finally starts moving and trying to get up, but keeps falling back down. She is giving the saddest most horrific cry to us while doing it. We, immediately go grab a hose and sweat scraper. I was not sure how long she had been down in the hot sun, but knew it was hot out and she needed to be cooled down. Iris finally managed to stand up and stagger to the gate. We spent a few minutes using the hose and scraping her off. She SEEMED better so we started to go back to the house. She followed us closely, crying that horrible cry, and staggering drunkenly until she almost made it to the deck. There is where she collapsed. She started hyperventilating and just laid there. Her feet were straight out in front of her. I went inside immediately to have A call her on call holiday weekend boss to have them come out. After, explaining what was going on and how old she was we decided to just go ahead and euthanize her. Unfortunately, the on call tech lives in Oklahoma so it took an hour for them to get here. Since, of course, Iris chose to collapse in the sun again and was obviously in such distress, we decided to try to get her as comfortable as possible. D went and got a piece of plywood to hold up to help keep her in the shade. I was using a cold compress on her head and neck, which she seemed to like and relaxed enough that we thought she had passed before they got here. A was in charge of giving her boss updates, bringing D and I water in the blazing heat, and looking up the number for the county's large animal removal service. We were also discussing what to do about the incredibly attached sidekick that Iris has. Our super sweet mini donkey, Gwen. Donkeys are social animals and can't be by themselves. We were also talking about how we had just bought enough coastal hay FOR A YEAR so we were figuring out what to do with that since the donkey only eats 4 lbs a day and we have 8000 lbs! After about 45 minutes, Iris starts licking the ground. Weird. Then suddenly she starts rolling around and D and I have to jump out of the way because remember I was sitting down lovingly caressing her head with a cool cloth and D was holding plywood for shade. Suddenly, she gets up. ON HER FEET! She started grazing on the grass near where she had been laying for the last hour. The vet was about 10 minutes away. By the time the vet got here, Iris was standing and eating. A was mortified that she had called her boss to come out on a holiday weekend to a horse obviously NOT in a life threatening situation. She still preformed an exam. It definitely was not colic, which is a common lethal horse issue. She gave her a shot for colic just in case though. If the vet tech had not lived so far away or if Iris had not gotten up 10 minutes before the vet got here, she would have 100% been euthanized that day. We aren't sure what happened, but are guessing a stroke. She has one eye now that doesn't really open and is droopy. She is behaving some what normally, but walking a little weird. Her behavior is a little strange too. Today when we went out to pick up poop in the pasture she followed us the ENTIRE time and just wanted me to rub on her, which has NEVER happened. She seems to be eating ok, but I am not sure she can see through the droopy eye. I hope I didn't make a mistake by not euthanizing her. I don't want her to suffer. I guess time will tell. We have no idea if another episode is coming or what to expect. If she does that again though D will just take care of it. The cries she made were gut wrenching. For now though, she seems ok, not great, but ok.

L was so involved in school, she had no idea what had transpired and poor T had to make his own birthday pizza, which he actually did a really good job at! We also only had time to watch half of his movie. I made it up to him by giving him the next day off from school in order to watch the rest of his movie and relax. I am ready for our two days at the lake next week!