You can take home... or can I ??

I get a call that he is looking good, whinnying every time someone gets near the feed room door, and passing manure, and I can come get him. I decide to wait a bit before heading down. I have already paid for this days stall, so I might as well haul him when it cools down, and also give him time to start feeling bad again. The weather is hot and humid.

I arrive just after office hours, and the vet says "He JUST started looking a bit funky again". He would lay down, but not roil, and look at his tummy a little bit. I tell her I'll go eat dinner, and come back to see what he is doing. When I return, they have put him on IV fluids again, or as I call it, "liquid gold" as that is what shoots the vet bills up so much. He has had some drugs, so it quiet, but perky enough to whinny at me when he sees me get out of the truck. Thankfully the whole staff is on duty tonight, including the head vet, Dr. Wes Williams who has dealt with many, many colics and colic surgeries. They are doing a tendon surgery on a horse, and when done, I am able to talk with Dr. Williams awhile. This is frustrating, as the horse is not in a full blown nasty colic. He is just a little "off". He is passing some manure, wants to eat, and his metabolics are not really bad in any area. In fact, he has not had any one thing really off for any of the colics. But when you look at the whole picture, you can see the horse has something going wrong with him. I can tell Dr. Williams is concerned about Hank, and maybe puzzled. He finally says he things we need to take him to surgery, as something in there is not right, and is causing these issues, and it is no longer just a "run of bad luck". The horse has coliced about every 9 days for the past 5 weeks. So, after they prep the room from the previous horse, Hank will go in and have surgery.