She's worth it...

She was down and couldn't and wouldn't get up...she was sweating, stretching and groaning.

She wouldn't let Sundance nurse ...

We got her up and began to walk her.
Cheyenne was in a lot of pain. She was passing manure but seemed to be cramping up.
We checked her gums.
Her mouth was dry, her gums were white.
My heart did an awful thud-thud in my chest. This was not a good sign at all.

I began calling vets. The first one I called was going out of town. He recommended a vet I didn't care for.
Then I recalled the shy tall lanky vet that had come out before when we had a mule with a slight colic.
I dialed him.
He answered.
I gave him the details and he never hesitated and said he'd be at our place in a half an hour.

He was, with his daughter who called herself a 'animal nurse' not a vet tech.
Cheyenne was severely dehydrated and probably was colicky. Dr. Anderson checked her out.

Cheyenne stood, her legs quivered. She looked horrible.

5 hours later along with 6 bags of IV fluids, she was feeling quite fiesty and a bit testy at having a catheter in her neck.
Dr. Anderson along with his daughter had saved her life.
He surmised that it was caused perhaps by a feed change [we'd run out of our regular hay and had been feeding another kind for 4 days] along with the sudden onset of extreme heat and humidity coupled with her age.

Tonight he sat at my kitchen table while he and his daughter wrote up the bill and explained what they wanted us to do to encourage Chey to drink more water and how to hopefully avoid a relapse.

He handed me the bill and said quietly and almost apologetically, 'Gee, this is a lot. I hope you think she is worth it.' [He was not being smug, it was more a comment on the fact that the bill was probably more than the amount of money that Cheyenne would be worth on the market place.]

I smiled and glanced at the total.
'Yes, she is worth it, Doc. She has provided me with many years of riding and has given us one fine mule daughter that we ride, this is her second.'

I handed him cash for the bill and smiled.
My husband ushered them out the door~~it was now nearly 11:30 pm.

Doc and his daughter's last words were...'please call us in the morning so we know how she is doing.'

Yep she's worth it.
[She's doing very well right now and we'll be keeping a close eye on her.]
Thank you Doc, you are a wonderful vet.