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Blog 4

Blog December

I recently returned from being a guest at the American Association of Equine Practioners where I heard Dr. Dean Richardson give a lecture on caring for Barbaro. Again, it was fascinating to hear how the nation was so caught up in the story of Barbaro’s battle to heal.

Dr. Richardson’s talk was humorous as well as informative. He’s a very likeable guy. He showed slides of Barbaro’s surgery and other photos taken during the eight months of Barbaro’s care.

During those months, Dr. Richardson received a caboodle of suggestions on how to “fix” Barbaro’s broken leg, including using ocean water, garlic and oregano. One person even insisted that if only Barbaro’s mother could visit him, THAT would be the missing cure. (Well, I’d always vote for the power of the mother!)

But the point is--everyone wanted to help. And yet almost no one understood that treating a horse is so very different from treating a human. An animal that weighs over one thousand pounds and stands on what amounts to one fingernail at the end of each limb does not correlate to what goes on with us humans. Furthermore, the desire for humans to anthropomorphize animals is apparently never ending. While our imaginations can jump into others and be helpful, this tendency can also be dangerous. What is good for the goose is not always good for the gander—that sort of thing. About ten times a day, I try to remind myself of this and be respectful of the authentic nature of any animal I’m trying to communicate with— including humans. I think we’re as different as the shades in a paintbox.

On that note, I learned that when Barbaro’s half brother, Man of Havana, was found to lack the speed to be racehorse, he has been given a good life as a show horse—a jumper, I think.

Particularly affecting was seeing the slides of Barbaro’s laminitic left rear hoof. There was not much there to work with. With the damaged hoof wall removed, the tissue underneath was vulnerable. And the hoof actually regrew very little. I also did not know that following one early surgery, Barbaro had a hard time coming out of anesthesia. For sixteen hours, staff patiently sat around the recovery pool watching and waiting for Barbaro to become fully awake. The dedication to his well-being was impressive. Yet I feel this care would happen anywhere. If there is one major impression I carried away from the AAEP meeting, it is that all veterinarians are truly committed to the wellbeing of horses.

On another note--most informative was seeing a slide of a horse that had been treated successfully for a broken back leg. The uninjured leg had become extremely “bowed” by compensating for the one that was healing. The broken leg was the one that came out “straight.”

In the end, it was laminitis that brought Barbaro down. But despite his demise, the compassion he awakened, especially in children, at a time of national confusion and despair in wartime will live in the history books longer than any of us who rooted for Barbaro in a race he did not sign up for.

MEMORY MASH

This story comes from a woman named Wanda who told me how she traveled from one place to another to find a fulfilling life. Nothing quite fit, and nothing quite felt fully satisfying. So she retuned home to the place she had fled “‘cause nothing much ever happened there.” By now, her mother was elderly, and although Wanda was eager to help care for her, Wanda also feared she’d once again be weighted down with a sense of wasting her life.

“Door Step”

Thirty years ago Wanda left her family farm to go out into the wide, wide world. But when she turned 57 she found she was tired of the wide world, and moved back to the town of six thousand people where she grew up.

Wanda is a small woman. In high school she was called “petite.” Now her width is gaining on her length. But the old personality has stayed there under everything that the wide world taught her; only now she says she is rediscovering more of who she always was by being back where she started out.

In the sixties, Wanda was described in her high school yearbook as “bubbly.” And still, she is bubbly in personality and wears the bubble haircut that the sixties made popular. Reconnecting with her youth is her whole life now, she says. She got a part-time job working in a gift shop on Main Street, and she eats at the local restaurant every Sunday.

Recently, she was dusting the shelves in the gift shop when a tall handsome man snuck up behind her and put his hands over her eyes. He then kissed her passionately on the back of her neck and asked, “Does that tell you anything?”

“No,” Wanda said, “but do it again, and I’ll let you know.”

Once more, he kissed her passionately with his hands still over her eyes. “Now do you know who I am?” he asked.

“No,” she said again, “and I don’t care. Just keep going.”

Finally he twirled her around, took his hands from her eyes, and let her look at him. “I still don’t know,” she said.

The tall handsome man then said his name and added five words: 15, Okay Corral, ’67 Olds.

Wanda screamed and grabbed him, and they moved off to a corner where they could talk privately for a long while. “You’re not going to believe this!” Wanda said, coming back to confide in her boss as they both watched the tall man saunter out the front door. “That was the first boy I ever kissed. And for a whole week when I was fifteen we went out to the local drive-in in his Oldsmobile and practiced while watching “Shoot out at the Okay Corral.” And back then, well…he was skinny and covered with pimples, and now just look at him—he’s sixty and gorgeous!”

The gift shop owner--who’s a bit of a philosopher and collects little sayings that she sticks up all around the store—replied: “Well, you know what Schopenhauer said—that every parting is a little taste of death and every reunion a hint of a resurrection?”

“Resurrection, my foot!” Wanda exclaimed. “Honey, I’m talking about how a good fruit can ripen. AND what fifty years of practice can do. I declare--Heaven is on my doorstep!”