When I worked for a large corporation in Manhattan I was asked to take notes at a Board Meeting.  I was 20 years old and certainly not prepared to do this job.  The Secretary of the VP who usually did this was out sick.  I bounce between being a timid person, and a person of confidence.  The confidence surfaces when I’m totally knowledgeable about my subject.  I was definitely not confident about this.  So I had to talk myself into being great.  Somewhere along the line, the other secretary told me that the executives were just regular people and they put their pants on one leg at a time, just like us.  As I told my girlfriends daughter that time when she was going into the ring for a dressage test, just picture the judge naked and you’ll feel equal or more important than them, their just regular people doing a job.  So I put myself into that meeting as an equal, and did just fine.  Got to do it many times after that with no problem.

I’ve learned a lot since then.  I’m a more confident individual.  Years later some friends and I went to the Mayor of the City of New York to fight a horse licensing bill, and there was no hesitation speaking up for what we believed.  Mayor Koch was pleasant and listened to the points each one of us made.  The most important thing is that we won.  So if someone tells you that you can’t fight City Hall, they are absolutely wrong.  We fought the City Hall of one of the most important cities in this country and won.

I use my neighbors horse for a lesson I have on Saturday mornings.  He’s quiet, gentle, and just a sweet thing.  When I walked over to get him, he was definitely in distress.  Brown gunk pouring out of both nostrils and coughing up the same.  Looked like choke, but when my filly had the same fluid from the nose thing, it was a twist and we put her down.  We couldn’t get her off the ground to get her into a trailer to surgery.  His owners were not at home, so I called my other neighbor to come stay with him while I went to call my lesson and cancel.  She was going to call the owner and the vet.  By the time I got back, the husband returned and he called his wife and tried to get their vet.  It took sometime, but we finally touched base with the vet on call.  He was on his way to another call an hour away.  This was at 11:00 a.m., so 12 cc of Banamine, and five hours later, the vet showed up.  My neighbor and I stayed until the Banamine took effect and then I walked home and watched him from my window and she from hers.  The wife came home shortly after I got back to my house.  I walked back and filled her in on all my findings.  Fresh manure in his stall, no temperature, pale gums, wouldn’t drink, very little gut sounds, his whole body was sore to the touch, laying down, and lethargic.  She told me she’d call me when the vet got there.

Well he arrived.  Then he made the mistake of telling us that the horse looked fine when he pulled up.  Seriously!?????????  He’s standing there looking like death warmed over.  My Irish side snapped to attention and I said “Really?  Have you ever seen this horse before?  Do you know this horse?  He is NOT fine.”  (I know I’m supposed to speak the truth in love, and I wasn’t coming across that way.)  The owner chimed in and said this was definitely not how the horse normally was, and he wasn’t acting normal when she went to feed him that morning.  Okay, my defenses were up.  You don’t spend five hours with a sick horse to have a vet pull up and tell you he looks fine from his truck, without examining him.  So he went about tubing him for choke, pumped a bucket of water into his stomach, and appeared to be done.  Then he pronounced that it was just choke.  My comment was “I’m not buying into that.”  I had a horse with choke and after it cleared, he was back to normal.  I got the “if looks could kill” look, but back to the truck he went.  He came back and checked his heart, lungs, and stomach sounds.  Did a rectal, checked his gums and took his temperature.  Then he pumped a gallon of mineral oil into his stomach.  Next comment from him was “Well he didn’t have much gut sounds.”  Ya think? – That’s it? –  You’re done?  So I said “How about after care?  So then he told the owner no grain or hay for two days.  (I could have told her that, but I wanted her to hear it from him.  I also wanted him to do what he was getting paid for.)  I told him that the horse was pastured with two cows and there was a big roll of hay out there.  So he told her to keep him confined. (I think that was also a question that he should have asked since rolls of hay are common in our area.)

This is the second time I’ve run into the lack of after care information.  Just recently I had this problem with the office staff at the vet clinic I take my dogs too.  I had to ask them.  Now I know what after-care usually needs to be done, but there are so many people, who would be so relieved that their pet was going to be okay, that they wouldn’t even think to ask, and without proper after-care, it could put the dog right back where he started.  Actually, I’ve had questions pop into my head as I was pulling out of the clinic drive.  I have just picked up my cell phone, or turned, went back, and ask my questions.

Just because someone has a degree in something, or appears to be knowledgeable about something, if it doesn’t feel right to you, stop and ask questions.  Challenge them to make sure they covered everything.  If you still don’t buy into it, check further with other people and in other places.  Don’t just believe everything you hear.  Not with your animals, or the people in your lives.  I’ve done this to doctors too, and on prescriptions.  Sometimes it’s a matter of life or death.  If they are right, good for them.  You’ve just confirmed that this person knows what they are talking about.  If not, you’ve kept things from getting worse.

If this horse didn’t improve, after the original diagnosis, we would have had to wait another five hours or more to get the vet back.  As with my mare, maybe it would have been too late for this horse too.  The day my filly coliced I was an hour and fifteen minutes away.  Everyone was at a horse show.  There was not vet on Staten Island that took care of horses, my vet had to come from New Jersey, an hour away.  It was Saturday, and when the kids found her, they called my vet, and he didn’t want to come out.  When they called me and told me that she had fluids coming out of her nose, I called my vet and told him he’d better be there when I arrived.  He was, but it was too late.

I’ve probably written about something like this before, but it’s worth repeating if I did.

This will always haunt me.  If it doesn’t feel right, don’t be afraid to question a diagnosis.  They just put their pants on one leg at a time.  They do make mistakes.  But at whose cost.