A rocky recovery

up. I knew then that she’d done it.”

The work was far from over, however. Owen had blood seeping into his abdomen. “Looking down into his belly, I could see blood mixing with the fluid,” says Barrett. “It wasn’t as much blood as would have come from nicking the large vessel, but it was clear that a smaller vessel had been cut and the staple line was not fully ligating it.” She ordered the start of medications that would encourage clotting, while the assistant motioned to Carey to come downstairs again for an update.

“They explained what was happening and said they thought he’d be fine,” says Carey. “But it was clear from the amount of scurrying that was going on in that room that he wasn’t fine yet.” Eventually, however, the bleeding stopped. Owen’s abdomen was flushed clean, and the incision was closed with sutures. As he headed for recovery, Baker and Carey went home for some much-needed sleep.

Owen’s situation was still precarious. “When a horse is under anesthesia on the surgical table, his blood pressure is low,” says Barrett. “Then, when he recovers and stands up, his blood pressure increases.” When that happened, Barrett expected the bleeding in Owen’s abdomen to resume to some degree. The compli-