On Wednesday morning Zephyr was her perky, hungry, snuggly normal self. It was the first day I had gotten out to see her after spending a few in bed with covid.

By the time afternoon came, and another boarder was visiting the farm, she was rolling and uncomfortable. For my stoic queen, Zephyr, to be showing pain, it had to be bad.

I think it is every horse owners nightmare moment when you realize it isnt a small thing, and that you will need the vet. We loaded up and drove the 40 minutes to our local clinic to begin a normal colic workup. About halfway through the rectal exam, the contents of Zephyr's stomach spontaneously came out of her nose like a faucet. Not good.

A quick nose tube and we started draining her stomach. 12 liters later, out of what should have been an 8 liter stomach, she was a little more comfortable. The ultra sound wasnt showing anything awful, but the vet was very concerned with the fluid coming from her stomach. It was an orangey color which apparently indicated small intestine fluid, which could mean her intestine was twisted, dying or a multitude of other really bad things.

We were quickly referred to the local surgical center, Steinbeck Equine in Salinas, CA. Back onto the trailer and another 45 min drive further south to get there. Zephyr was perfect and sweet, loading and hauling great, even if I was freaking out and imagining her dying in my trailer as we drove. I think this was the scariest 45 minutes of my life.

The vets at the hospital were fantastic and took us in right away to do her baseline workup. She had a slightly abnormal rectal exam, with some strange poop and some extra gas, but nothing crazy, and still more orangey fluid coming from the stomach tube.

More ultra sounds, still nothing looking like a big red flag. A belly tap was done to test her internal fluids and again nothing was shouting an answer. Her heart rate wasnt even up, and she wasnt sweating or acting like much was wrong at all.

The vet decided to start her on fluids and keep her in the ICU overnight and monitor things. Maybe it was just really bad gas pain? We didnt have a solid answer, and nothing concrete enough to scream SURGERY NOW.

Overnight Zephyr had some discomfort and some more comfy moments. They sedated her once and kept a close eye on her. She wasnt crashing, but she wasnt getting better either. At midnight and 2 am she was uncomfortable and they gave her some sedation and when they checked her stomach again, a bunch more small intestine fluid came out. Definitely not good.

At 6 am the vet called me and we talked about options. They decided to do another belly tap and check that again - finding the numbers had changed, but her overall had stayed high, meaning things somewhere inside were still bad.

At that point it was surgery time. Things werent getting better and we need to figure out why.

Waiting for the call that she was ok was the hardest. The surgery window was 1-6 hours, depending on what they found. When they finally called me and told me she was ok, I couldnt even process it for a minute.

Inside they had found something called a bezoar, blocking her small intestine, as well as a significant impaction in her large intestine. I cant believe she didnt say more about hurting!

The bezoar was larger than my fist, hard as a rock and made of compacted feed, poop and internal material. It was so big they first thought it was a foreign body when they were running her intestine during surgery.

NOW ONTO RECOVERY!

So far she is doing great in recovery. Today they are starting to wean her off the fluid support and then slowly start reintroducing her favorite thing ever - FOOD!

Thank goodness this surgery was successful and my beautiful perfect Phyr is ok. This has been the scariest experience of my horse life.

We have a lot of rehab and healing to do for the next several months. She will have to move out of the pasture and into a stall for a while so she can heal.

But she is here, and has a full recovery ahead of her <3