I got a call from the equine vet resident who was "in charge of" Ibbie at the Mississippi State Vet School. They haven't finished the autopsy report yet, but preliminary reports show that the mass was, in fact, a huge abscess. They can't pinpoint how long she had it, other than to say more than two weeks.

 The doctor did say that she could have had it for a very long time. That it probably started as a small tear in the intestine from a previous bout of colic, although from a book I learned that it could have been started by migrating strongyles. She said that the infection started and the body walls off the tear but when the pus pocket doesn't go away, the body continues to make tissue. That resulted in the basketball sized mass. This process can go very quickly or very slowly. She said that there was absolutely no way anyone could have known or discovered the problem until she started to show symptoms--and she showed no obvious symptoms until the day before she died. Only a belly tap would have uncovered the problem, and you don't do belly taps until the horse  is in dire straits. She didn't think it would have showed up on blood work as anything but a mild infection, and who would suspect that the infection was in her colon.. The other name for abdominal abscess is chronic peritonitis.

 If Ibs hadn't been such a tough old bird, she'd have told us sooner that something was bad wrong. But she was a really tough lady who just lived with her pain. It may well have been what was making her cranky and difficult and even dangerous to ride sometimes, but we'll never know.

 We do know that she had no obvious problems with her reproductive organs that might have caused her hormones to be the cause of her behavior problem. That was one thing I had suggested as a cause because she had such raging, flaunting heats.

 One good thing--this equine vet resident said that she had heard about abdominal abscesses but had never seen one. So she learned something from Ibbie's death that might help some other horse some day. I take great comfort in that thought.

 Jane

 Viney Ridge

Ibbie has crossed the Rainbow Bridge. I received the information today 3/30/00 from her grieving owner - Jane.

Jane had seen the picture I took of Ibbie when she was in the feedlot in December/January 1999. Jane felt there was something special about Ibbie calling out to her from that picture and contacted me. These two lovely ladies had a year together. A year to laugh, act silly, throw tantrums, make up and to be friends. You see, they spoke the language of the heart to each other. From the first time Jane saw Ibbies picture, she knew.....when the heart speaks.......the heart listens.

Jane, thank you for listening to Ibbie's heart and letting her in yours.

Just wanted to let you know....

She showed no signs of peculiar behavior until last Friday morning, when she started colicking. A vet saw her, felt a mass in her abdomen and referred her to an equine vet. The equine vets oiled her and put IV's in, and palpated the mass, did a blood count and a belly tap. The belly tap showed slightly elevated protein, the blood count showed a very elevated white count, and the palpation showed a basketball sized mass. When the mass didn't move at all in two hours, they recommended that she be sent to the vet school at Mississippi State for possible surgery. That was done, and during the two hour haul, she never moved in the trailer.

The vet school was at first guardedly optimistic, since her protein levels hadn't changed on the trip and since she appeared to be pain-free. Late Friday night they did an ultrasound of the mass, and found that it had encircled at least three loops of the small intestine. They were fairly sure it was an abscess, and they didn't feel that there would be enough uninvolved gut for her to survive surgery. They basically felt there was no hope. So I went over Saturday to say goodbye. It was 160 miles one way, but I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't talked to the Doctor in person, and actually seen Ibs. She was, as usual, sweet, patient, and tolerating all the IVs and the indignities with grace and courage. She gave greeted me with a whunker, gave me a couple of horse hugs as I stood next to her hand grooming the drifts of blowing white coat , and she tried to follow me out of the stall when I left.

I talked to the doctor (resident on duty on Saturday) at length, and she convinced me from a number of signs that Ibbie's systems had pretty much shut down. She showed me the ultrasound and explained why surgery probably wouldn't be possible, but that they could cut her open and look. There was a good chance, in her weakened condition, that she wouldn't even have made it out of the operating room. So I signed the papers, when back and cried on her neck for a while and then came home.

They have done the necropsy--and the mass was just as the ultrasound showed. They are now in the process of determining precisely what the mass was and what caused