I had someone at the recent festival tell me I was lucky to be alive after four years fighting cancer. Really. I had a visceral reaction about the four years of pain, terror, nausea, physical limitations, pain, and did I say pain? I’m not so sure. I’m not doing this damned treatment to live another month with these issues. I’m doing the treatment in the (slim) hope to get to the other side, to a life without pain, without nausea, where I can walk and do the things I like to do. It’s a fantasy, but it’s my fantasy.
The people that care for my horses recently found my girl in pain with an abscess, and the pain wasn’t relieved when the abscess started draining. The vet came out and we found that her old age disease was limiting her immune system and that her old founder issues meant that she was in constant pain. The abscess was the least of her worries. I had the choice to make, try to save her or put her down.
Trying to save her was the heart speaking. She would be in constant pain for a year at least. Sooner or later the same issues that led to Secretariat being put down would likely necessitate her euthanasia as well. It would be a life of pain and restrictions and treatments. And she’s a diva or drama queen when it comes to pain. The other choice was that I could put her down. I couldn’t do it that day, mentally I had to process the news. But I decided to put her down and three days later we did.
In the intervening three days she was on pain killers and increasingly mobile, but that was like fools gold, there was no improvement. We could actually see the injury getting worse day by day. It was the right thing for her. I couldn’t have explained to her why the pain was necessary and what I hoped for in her future. She wouldn’t understand my hopes for her future. What I really wanted for her was a life without pain, and there was only one path.
Good bye Dreamer, I will never forget you.
