Berky- March 21, 1995- May 4, 2010

It's been a long, drawn out fight these last few months. My boy started coughing early March. We had him scoped, and he had an epiglottic entrapment. Probably from being an idiot in the pasture.. he did like scream around at mach five when he got turned out. We contacted insurance, got surgery approved, and took him to the clinic.

Tuesday. We pull in to load him at four AM. It took four hours and five people to get him on the trailer. He must have known what was going on. We arrive at the clinic, and a handful of orderlies lead us to the examination room. By this time, Berky is scared out of his mind. I'd never seen him so stressed out.

Things really exploded when they tried to put him in the restraints. They got him half-secured, then he started kicking wildly. It killed me to watch him. They pulled him out and it took all of us to hold him still. And then they told me they'd be scoping him without sedation.

I've never seen a horse shut down that completely. They got the scope in all right. But he was so traumatized after they pulled it out that the orderlies had to literally pick his feet up for him to get him to move. It was terrible. The diagnosis was almost as bad.

He had fluid in his lungs. Lots of it. And no entrapment. Instead, there was nerve damage. We drew blood and hoped for EPM, and were given a prescription of chloramphenicol to clear his lungs.

Berky stayed in the stall for two weeks. He wouldn't eat. He wouldn't walk. He just stood, drooling gunk from his lungs. Finally, he began to perk up, and the drooling subsided. We were all so excited that he was improving.

He went back for his checkup. The doctors were baffled. The EPM test came up negative. His lungs had not cleared, despite the strongest antibiotics on the market. He had developed a lesion.

We decided the best thing for him was euthanasia. We had six vets working on our case. No one knew what to do for him. There was a tie-back surgery unearthed through all of this, but it was a model of correct procedure. However, the vets wanted us to have one last go at it with Marquis, in hopes it would fix whatever was causing the dysphagia.

No luck. After wrestling with insurance,they decided not to allow us to go through with it, and his condition worsened steadily.

Finally, we decided enough was enough. We pulled him off his medication Friday and let him be a horse. I had never seen him move so beautifully as he did in that pasture.

We had him put to sleep today. He is buried under his favorite shade-tree, in the tire pasture. I couldn't watch. Part of me still thinks he's romping around with Al and Jackson. I've never loved anything as much as I loved that horse. It's like someone ripped a huge chunk out of me.