Sympathetic Pains

I’m in the midst of sympathetic pains. For horse colic.

Think sympathetic pregnancy pains, then cut out the cute infant at the end of the process, and substitute a really sick horse.

This morning, while I was out watering the garden and squashing squash bugs, I noticed my neighbors were walking their horse. Around and around their property.

And my own stomach is tied up in little knots.

Every horse owner knows the scenario. You come out to find your horse is down and won’t get up. Or he’s yo-yo-ing up and down, intersperses with frantic bouts of rolling. Either way, you know it’s time to call the vet. And wait.

In the meantime, you put a halter on your horse and march him around the grounds, because sometimes–rarely, really–all this continuous walking cures the colic. More likely, it was a bad case of gas colic and it cures itself. But let the forced marching begin.

The vet arrives. She listens to the horse’s stomach, sometimes shoves a gloved hand up his rear, or a tube down his nose and to his stomach. Gives the horse a shot of a pain killer. She then shrugs and hands you a bill for a few hundred bucks and leaves.

At which point, your beloved equine friend gets better quickly or things get really ugly, expensive or fatal, really fast.

I nearly lost the Wonder Horse to a bad colic several years ago. To this day, the poor beast can’t take a nap without me running out and asking, “Are you all right?"