How Bentley’s Medical Emergency Changed Me

This is a story about spending the night nursing a sick horse, but it is also a story about grace.

When Bentley experienced a sudden episode of colic in April, I was healing from surgery and trying to figure out how to use my body around the horses again.

But the hours spent watching and waiting for Bentley to turn a corner were also a lesson in connection. My body was still slowly knitting itself together. Since arriving home from the hospital, I had feared a late-night medical emergency in the barn. When a horse is experiencing colic, the veterinarians rely on a person to be a primary contact and do a lot of watching, waiting, monitoring and lifting. I am that person at Bramblewood. When I was barely able to walk after surgery, I knew that I wasn’t equipped to handle an emergency with the horses. It never occurred to me that rather than worry, I should just ask for help.

At the precise moment that I was mobile and able to manage taking temperatures and hand-walking a horse for hours, Bentley had his first episode of colic. He’s had pain related emergencies in the past, and when I saw Sarah walking out of his stall one afternoon, I just assumed that he had been lying down because his osteo-arthritis was going through a growth cycle.

Within moments, it was obvious that his condition was much more serious. His whole body radiated with a sense of pain and inner-turmoil. I phoned the vet right away and began making plans for keeping Bentley moving and monitoring his vital signs.

In all the catastrophizing that I did during my own recovery, I should have stopped to realize that I was not alone. And Bentley’s health crisis brought that into stark focus. From the moment Sarah found him until the wee hours of the morning when we all felt comfortable leaving Bentley to find some rest, there was someone beside me. Wonderful, glorious people, all equally committed to seeing Bentley through the scare and doing anything it took to supply his needs.

There is a sacred reverence to holding vigil with a sick horse. All the posturing and facades we put on to deal with the world drop away. Life becomes concentrated, alchemized, down into what is actually important. How can we meet this creature’s needs? How can we support each other?

Colic is a horse’s worst enemy and we use the word to describe any number of gastrointestinal issues that a horse may experience. It can be triggered by gas, ulcers, stress, a blockage, the weather and barometric pressure, the full moon. Colic can happen when a horse lies down to roll and their intestines shift and twist. Colic is the number one killer of horses and it can happen to a 45 year old pony snoozing in a field or a million-dollar racehorse yearling. Olympic horses, backyard horses, police horses — all are susceptible to this disorder that can strike at any time.

Oddly enough, colic is rarely seen in wild horses. In his brilliant book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Robert M. Sapolsky outlines the effect of chronic stress on human health. Zebras, unlike horses, never decided to join humans in a partnership of domestication. Zebras may be eaten by a predator at any moment, but their stress response activates only in moments of real life or death crisis. The rest of the time, they’re munching grass out on the Savannah and staying pretty focused on the moment.

Domesticated horses have adapted alongside humans, but they’ve also taken on physical ailments we seldom see in wild environments. Just like us, stress can make them sick.

Bentley had a rough start in life and while he’s kept in the best comfort a domesticated horse can experience, in many ways he processes the world like a baby horse. He learned how to be a horse from humans rather than the powerful guidance of a mama mare who would have taught him how to be bold and how to best navigate herd life and the natural environment. Something as small as a butterfly fluttering around Bentley’s face can cause him deep concern.

We can’t read his mind, so there is no way for us to know for certain what caused Bentley’s colic. When the vet arrived and did a physical examination that included a rectal exam and gastro-nasal tube — the two techniques that form the bedrock of first-response colic treatment — his diagnosis was grim. The vet used his hands to feel that Bentley’s body was distended by trapped gas and the force of it had moved and shifted his colon.

“Is this horse a surgical candidate?”

I shook my head. “No, he is not.”

I’m always ashamed to answer this question because we’ve made a universal call for all horses that become a part of the Bramblewood program. None of our horses are surgical candidates. Colic surgery is expensive, beginning at $10k and rising steadily upward depending on how well the horse responds to treatment. Years ago, my Shire horse, Falstaff, was on the operating table for ten minutes before they realized that surgery would not save him. Horses that have had colic surgery often have a rather poor prognosis and a pretty limited life after recovery, if recovery is even possible.

But the emotional pull to SAVE THIS ANIMAL AT ALL COSTS still pulls me whenever the attending vet asks. Deciding before a dreaded incident that we will not be transporting the horse to a hospital keeps me from making stupid, emotional decisions in the moment.

It was the vet’s turn to shake his head. “I’ve seen them rally when the colon is out of place, but the next few hours are crucial. If he can pass gas, there is a slim chance that his body will right itself.”

So we all got to work. We lunged him and kept him moving, but Bentley’s pain continued to surge and he pawed at the ground trying to lie down and roll to find relief every time he stood still for a moment. Dosed with heavy duty painkillers, he would snooze for a moment and then his head would jerk awake in discomfort.

I made phone calls to people who have been there for Bentley over the years in preparation for the worst possible outcome.

I’m really weird about protecting a horse from people’s energy when there is an emergency. I know when I don’t feel well I resent people pushing their emotions toward me, and horses with their heightened sensitivity to our energy have to feel it even more.

As the night wore on, Bentley was surrounded by people who put his needs above their own, and I think that made all the difference.

As the painkillers wore off, Bentley continued to show signs of distress, but he was also able to move freely in the ring and began to pass gas. Over and over again, we would send him out to trot and canter — anything to keep him moving. And just as he had done when the vet watched me lunge him earlier in the evening, Bentley was all business about moving. He didn’t resist; he listened perfectly to commands. Every word I spoke, he seemed to understand.

But he wasn’t rallying. He wasn’t getting better.

As the sun went down, I gave up hope.

Throughout my career, I have seen so many colic cases, but one thing I have learned is that if the horse doesn’t show significant improvement with the first dose of pain killers, they are not going to get well.

With this in mind, I didn’t have much hope. I was resigned to the fact that we were going to lose Bentley.

I thought about the new work we had found together assisting humans on the ground in coaching sessions. I thought about the history he and I had together, how we had built the farm side by side for so many years, how he daily shows me that there is so much more to this horse world than riding.

As I stood with Bentley in the ring that night, I began to sing to him. I hate singing out loud and I hate speaking to crowds. I never belt out a song. But old gospel songs came up, one after another, and I sang them to Bentley in a loud, clear voice, calling him back.

He came to a halt and stood in front of me in the middle of the arena.

“We’ve got work to do still,” I said. “I need you to stay here a little longer. Please stay, Bentley.”

In the moment when I simply and clearly stated what I needed from him, the air seemed to shift. Bentley stared at me. He heard me.

And in that moment, he started to get better.

I do not for a moment think that it was a magic on my part that brought about the shift inside Bentley’s body, but I do know that as I told him exactly what I needed, something shifted inside of me. Something old and sad and broken gave way —my need for control,  the inner chamber of my heart that was closed and sealed off because some grief feels unbearable — it broke free. I allowed myself to feel in a way that we’ve learned to protect ourselves from in daily life.

And when I felt that thing, Bentley felt me back, his big eyes looking back at me in recognition.

THIS — this is the way horses really need us to show up. They need us to be real and honest, to be open and ready for life, whatever that may bring, including death.

Though still not a hundred percent, Bentley felt better. The rest of the night was spent with him in the ring, moving when he needed to move, passing more gas, surrounded entirely by people who loved him, people who make a much better habit than me of living and feeling through their heart.

Horses are fragile and complicated and honest — so are we, if we allow ourselves to be. From the Siberian steppes, from our hunter gatherer roots, horses decided that they would, unlike zebras, work through the eons in concert with humans. And now we are both here in the modern world that we have built, a world that is making us both sick.

Maybe the whole point wasn’t to find shelter, resources, and build civilization with each other. Maybe the horses signed up for this job to save us on the other side of growth and progress, the place we’re at now where all our tools can’t keep our stomachs from cramping with stress. Maybe they knew with that big-hearted, intuitive knowing, that we would need their hooves and their strength to show us how to live again in the natural world.

Thank you, Bentley. We’re so glad that you decided to stick around a little longer and show us the way back to ourselves. We love you.