Least Fun Thing to do at Work

I know you've been in suspense since my last post. Considering my BFF is the only one who reads this - that is a lot of suspense in the world.

Let's continue where we left off shall we? The end of the surgery had arrived. One doctor and one tech stayed behind to close the foal - I left with another doctor to tackle the next emergency. The mini horse came in and she was obviously in distress. I think she'd been in labor for about two hours at that point. For point of reference - that's too long for a horse. They should be making good progress within 20 minutes of their water breaking. All we could see was the tail of her baby sticking out of her va-jayjay (thanks to Oprah for putting that word on the map).

We tried very hard to get the baby out as fast as possible. Lots of lube and pulling and still the baby wouldn't budge. He was all turned around in there. Butt first, legs underneath him, it was a mess. Not surprisingly he was already dead.

Finally the doctor had to make a decision. Get the baby out - save the mom. He gave the mare a sedative to lay her down and relax her insides enough to pull the baby out. He quickly realized that our next, and only option, was a fetotomy. That involves cutting the baby apart while it's still in the mom, and pulling it out piece by piece. Gross but necessary.

We got to work and quickly cut off one back leg with gigli wire. I couldn't any good pictures to post but basically it's wire that you pull back and forth and it acts as a saw. We then cut the other back leg off and wrapped chains around the "stumps" that were left. It took both of us to pull the baby out. We were pulling as hard as we could and the baby finally slipped out.

I haven't described the conditions we were working in. Imagine lots and lots of blood and baby juice, combined with the slippery stuff we were using to lubricate the mare. All over the floor. All over our hands. All over our clothes and shoes. Every few steps I would slip. It didn't matter if I fell because I was already covered with the stuff.

The owners, surprisingly, handled the whole thing well. They watched the entire process and weren't at all fazed when we pulled their mare's baby out in three separate pieces. They couldn't afford to leave the mare overnight for observation so we sent them home with instructions and a butt load of antibiotics. We never heard from them after that, despite numerous phone calls to see if the mare lived.

This process isn't pretty but I felt lucky to be involved. Some of the techs who have worked at the clinic for years have never seen a fetotomy and I got to witness and get in on the action. Just another day on the job!

P.S. I posted a picture of Rob and his mini-horse just so you can see how cute mini horses are. You know Rob - from Rob & Big.