Help with Medical Bills for Pony

Early on the morning of January 7th,  I found our beloved pony "Honey" lying on her side motionless in the pourring rain.  Soaking wet and covered with mud, Honey was groaning and twisting her face in agony.   Horrified I rushed to her side.  Something was terribly, terribly wrong.    Pulling on her rope with all my strength she struggled to her feet, and I immediately phoned our veterinarian.   We  began an ordeal that unfolded over the next 24 hours - and has continued into the ensuing subseqent weeks - as Honey underwent an extensive first abdominal surgery for a severe colic and small intestine impaction -  and then was opened up a second time for emergency surgery for an additional impaction only two days later, only to be sent home briefy after four days, to have to be rushed back to emergency with a sudden onset of a raging infection from an unknown bacteria.  Honey is still at UC Davis's ICU being treated indefinitely.....

Please help us cover her extensive medical bills, and her ongoing recovery when we are finally able to bring her home again.   We would be so grateful for any support for Honey you might feel able to provide.  Every little bit will help us in the ongoing struggle to save her life.

Honey's story unfolded in what became a series of  dramatic events that ensued over the course of many subsequent weeks.  On that initial morning when I found her lying lifeless-like in the mud, her gums were pale, and she was severely dehydrated.   The night before had seen uncustomary freezing temperatures and apparently Honey had not been drinking!  Her temperature registered at 103°F - anything over 102°F - the lethal danger zone  - and Honey was colicking severely.   After giving her an injection for pain,  I begin walking her at 9 AM and we did not stop walking until 9 AM the following day!    Every time we stood still, she attempted to drop down to throw herself onto the ground to ease her abdominal pain.    Something in me knew if I let her go down, she might never get back up again.  

And so we walked.  And we walked some more, and more and more until the vet arrived within an hour of  my call.    Honey's diagnosis:   a severe colic impaction with possible onset of infection.    She was in utter agony.  After sedating Honey, we struggled to administer oral hydration, through a  nasal tube, which was stiff and  practically unyielding due to the cold temperatures.  Her nasal passageways became cut and she developed a volumounious nosebleed.  Eventually the tube was placed into her stomach where we administered oil and warm water to help lubricate her intestinal tract.   Over the next 24 hours Honey would have to endure this same procedure four more times.  Upon rectal exam, the vet extracted one large "fecal entrolithe" - a ball of hardened manure, hair and undigested hay.    Surely, then we thought, we were out of the woods.  Not so.  So....not so.  The vet returned by 4:00PM, and we tubed her again.  More pain meds.  Still waiting for her to defecate, as sign our ministrations were working, but our hope was to no avail.

All we could do was wait.   Honey and I kept up our marathon walk.  But by 11:00pm Honey's condition once again became frantic and I phoned the vet again.  Until 3:30am she, Honey and I attempted everything we could in the field - IV antibiotics, another rectal exam, another tubing, more injection with stronger pain meds,  and by then Honey was beside herself.   She had by then tolerated so many probes in every orafice and sticks with needles in attempts to find her veins in her thick winter fur, she was beside herself... and so were we. The vet went home to get some rest and Honey and  I persisted.  My adrenaline had kicked in:  I hadn't slept; hadn't eaten;  had no coffee and I wasn't even tired.  I was determined to save my beloved friends life.  
I was not going to let her die. 

With the early morning rays of light, Honey was pushing through her last and strongest pain med violently.   I began to feel really scared..... and a sense of  hopelessness admittedly lurked around my tenacity of will.  All night I thought of the possiblitity of having to put her down in the morning to put her out of her misery.  I had no money.  My credit cards were full and I saw no solution in sight.  

Tears welled up in me and spilled down my cheeks as the dawn came through the black of that long night.   The truth is - from the beginning Honey and I have had a deep bond, something like soulmate sisters between the horse and human realms, and she is a magical and very special pony.

Spirited, danity, powerful, stunningly beautiful, a beautiful mover, tuned in, interested and alert, willing and strong, gentle and sensitive - Honey is a pony who is full of life.

Prior to becoming part of our family, she had been a lesson pony at a local riding school, where she was sold to us for a song, because she had a reputation as a "wicked,  mean pony", who deemed "unridable" had bucked off every child who tried to ride her.   In truth, she hated that life.  They,  it seemed perhaps, didn't understand her.  Highly intelligent, intuitive, and full of herself, she commands, and knows she deserves respect.  The truth be known, Honey loves children and  going out on new adventures.  
Each year, for over six years now, she brings joy to hundreds of children she interacts with in our pony summer camps, riding lessons, and parties.   We say she "chose" us, because she always offers her heart happily and willingly, in a spirit of loving cooperation.  Everywhere we go people comment on her beauty.
I just could not imagine that her life was going to end this way.  I was beside myself.

The vet had left at 3:30 saying that unless something changed by morning, the only resort was a visit to the ICU at UC Davis Veterinary Hospital, but that felt so far out of the quesiton.   My credit cards were all full and my bank accounts drained from our recent move and the ongoing health challenges that living with Lymes Disease for years has presented for my family, that I literally felt up against the wall.  Literally, in that moment, I hated the concept of money.  I hated how money could dictate who would live ..... and who would not.  I hated the fact that I felt so powerless to change Honey's situation.   I posted this picture of her at 4:30am that morning.....we both..... freezing, soaking wet and destitute.... to my mom's cell phone on the East Coast.  

My mom texted back...."get her in the trailer and take her to Davis immediately", and then told me emphatically that she was not going to let happen to Honey what had happened to Misty our family pony in my early twenties when she died of a twisted intestine, and that she and my dad would put the deposit on their credit card and I could pay them back.   That was that.   My prayers had been answered.  There was hope for Honey thanks to their kind support.  I wept tears of joy as I loaded that pony into our little red trailer and braved 280 northbound traffic into SFO at 8:00am on that January 14th Wednesday morning, 

By 12:00pm,  the UC Davis emergency team flew into action.  

Shaving Honey's belly, her neck, blood draws, tubing her again, an enema, accupuncture, ultrasounds, x-rays and fluid drawn from her abdomen all produced telling results.  
She was in a severe state of colic and was badly impacted.  Honey's entire system was blocked up and shut down.   She was filled with gas and blown up like a large balloon, looked twice her size and was blowing through every pain med they administered over the  next 24 hours, surgery was the only thing that would save Honey's life.  

Colic surgery costs range between $5k to $7K and half or a $3,500 deposit was required.  The rest, we made arrangements for monthly payments over two years.  How fortunate I thought.  I am going to be okay.  Honey is going to be okay as I signed my name on the dotted line.  Little did I know, that was just the beginning.

Three days after Honey had first become impacted, she went up on the surgery table.  Her three hour surgery produced yet another "fecal entrolithe", and for a day and a half Honey was much skinner and seemed more stable.  

But soon again, she was pushing through her pain meds,  swelling up and began going down and rolling with pain.  Inspite of their mainstream medical magic, the only thing left to do was to open her back up again.

The UC Davis medical staff informed me that most owners chose to euthenasize at this point, rather than opt for a second surgery.  How?  How could I even consider this as an option?  After all we had been through already - what was another couple thousand dollars with what was already owed.  Afterall, we were already $7,000 into it with field vet bill, her surgery and  ICU care.

Honey had given me her trust, her heart, her devotion over 6 years.  In truth, she is my favorite.  She is so special.  I am devoted to her.  I am deeply devoted to her.  She has given me so much, and so many children so much joy.  She is only 12, she has so many years of a beautiful life to live I thought.  I couldn't possibly make that choice and give up on her if there was still hope for her life.   And, the surgeons opened her fully back up again.  

This time they flushed her entire intestinal tract and found yet another fecal entrolithe, stuck in the same inflamed bend in her small intestine.  Poor Honey!
As they guided her back to her stall after her second surgery, she looked like half the pony she had been.

 
She was so drawn and thin.  She still literally, hadn't pooped or eaten in six days.  

We all just stood with her for hours just holding her as she recovered from anestheia.  She was exhausted.
Each time she heard our voices, she would start screaming and calling out with an urgency and intensity that made the ICU staff comment they had never seen another horse respond to her owners like that.   We made the two to four hour drive  (depending on Bay Area traffic), from Half Moon Bay to Davis almost every day to visit her.  We knew, and the vet techs had told us, that their patients did better when their families visited regularly, so we did.   And after just four days of recovery, we were able to bring her home.

Sequestered in her private stall, we had disinfected and cleaned, she sniffed threw the bars, as all her pony friends welcomed her back and each took turns standing vigil outside her stall.  It was obvious to us that they were glad that an important member of their herd had returned. 

All seemed well, but soon her incision began to swell, and after four days, Honey was once again trying to throw herself onto the ground.  We immediately trailered her back up to UC Davis emergency again.  Her abdominal incision had infection and was filled with fluid.  They sedated her again, and began removing her incision's staples to allow for drainage and to relieve the pressure.  



There always is danger of surgically opening up a horse like this, but opening them up twice greatly increased the odds of infections.  Here we were.  And again, she was admited again under their care.  

Upon writing this, today,  poor Honey is just two days shy of a full month of this horrendous ordeal, and still remains under the attentive and expert care of the UC Davis surgeons, interns and residents.  She has to be in a tiny isolation stall without shavings so her incision can drain and heal.

There is a scholarship they all want me to apply for through the UC Davis Veterinary school and I am getting the paperwork for that.   Though it's only $1,500 it would be a start.  The surgeons recommended I submit Honey's story for crowd funding and to Facebook as well.  They said many of their patients have had help with covering their medical costs with donations from compassionate contributors.  So here I am doing just that!

They all love her.  They have all been wonderful to her every step of the way and we are deeply indebited for their professionalism, competency and abiding kindness not only to Honey, but to us.  We are all praying she'll heal.  They've all said she is unique and fiesty, and such a fighter.  They were all sad to see her come back of course, but love tending to her and taking her out on three or four walks a day.  She watches on the ward with attentiveness and greets each of them by placing her nose in their hands and giving them a nudge.  She knows. They all know she knows.  

If any of you have ever been lucky enough to have a deep bond with an animal then you know too.  That unconditional love, presense and strong sense of heart that is offered in exchange measures against the greatest of all kinds of Love.  Honey's heart always speaks directly into my heart, and it is as if we always known what the other is thinking and feeling.  Call it anthropomorphic.  Perhaps?  And yet, Winston Churchill knew of what I speak, when he said once "The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man".  If this is true, and I believe deeply that it is, then saving Honey is like saving my own child, or perhaps even in a sense saving ourselves.

Where do, and how can we draw the line on the value of a life?  For me is a continuum.... that cannot be drawn.  
Life is life.  
Honey's life is worth saving.  
I have given her everything I can and pray that she get through this ordeal.  

Close to $15,000 in debt already, with no end date in sight, Honey's bills continue to mount.  She has to remain in UC Davis Veterinary Hospital's care on IV antibiotics, because anything could still happen.  Honey is not yet out-of-the woods.   Presently, they are trying to identify a rare strain of bacteria that has emerged and how best to treat it.

So we are all still praying for our beloved Honey's healing and restored health.  We are praying for her full recovery and her return home to her family here on our "DreamLight Farms" in Half Moon Bay, California.  
Life - just doesn't feel the same without her.

Any contribution will make a difference.  Your kindness and generosity will go a long way in helping us continue to try to save this special and beloved pony's life.

Thank you for your support.   From the bottom of our hearts to yours.....

Terry and Olivia Tenzing
DreamLight Farms
Half Moon Bay, California

A girl and her pony.....

                                                  Please help us bring her home!