Jesse's Surgery

This is a pictorial of Jesse's trip to the Steinbeck Equine Clinic. The SEC was wonderfully generous in providing the facilities to allow Dr. Eric Davis of the Humane Society of the US to perform his initial surgery for what appears to be a sarcoid - biopsy pending. Dr. Davis heard about Jesse's plight from a friend on the SAFER email alert list and took an interest in his story. Without the intervention of Dr. Davis SAFER would have had no choice but to put Jesse down. We have so many horses to help and his care would have been quite prohibitive.

THANK YOU to Michelle at Harvest Moon Ranch for providing the transport for this trip - it was a 14 hour day!

But Jesse is a special guy. And he has a special job to do at the Sonoma Humane Society Forget Me Not Farm; he will be meeting and greeting all kinds of kids in all kinds of situations. If his treatment goes well.....he could have this job for decades.

Jesse gets of the bus ...after a 3 hour ride...

Jesse in the Waiting Room.

Butterfly moments for me....but Jesse is very calm.

Dr. Davis say...."Follow me please."

Jesse get his intake exam.... Dr. Davis has a wonderful stall side manner and Jesse is very comfortable with him.

 

You see...Jesse knows. Just like some people are more aware and present than others...so some horses are too.

That's the thing about Jesse. He is very aware of why he is here and what Dr. Davis is going to help him with. He never makes the slightest fuss during any of the trip or during his surgery. And he is an energetic guy!

Believe it or not!!

Jesse's tumor is cleaned, shaved and disinfected.

It is wrapped to keep it sterile.

Jesse is getting sleepy....very sleepy...

Dr. Davis's interns watch and learn.

Ok - I had a picture of his tumor but ... it is gross and I decided to forgo sharing that with you all. Jesse got up just fine and rested for a couple of hours before his 3 hour trip back to Sebastopol. It was a long trip. Michelle and I complained a bit...in a good humored way....but Jesse never made a fuss. All that way on a freshly incised wound - what a trooper.

We got back at 9pm and Carol Rathmann - Director of Forget Me Not Farm - was waiting with a nice clean stall and fresh water and mash. Lots of animals in the barn to greet him and it was a while before everybody settled down. Carol is a 20 year vet tech and will be very qualified to help him recover and face his journey back to health. The very next day children came to see the animals and Jesse was there to greet them.

 
Jesse's prognosis is guarded. Dr. Davis feels that it was certainly a sarcoid and there is very probably other sarcoid tissue inside the hoof. He applied cryotherapy (freezing) to the exposed tissue and we will be using chemotherapy over the next several months to try and kill the cancer cells. This sarcoid is coming out of an old injury. Remember Jesse came from the Petaluma auction. He also has marks on his other leg so he may have been roped in a rodeo event; or caught both hind legs in a fence perhaps.

We at SAFER - and all the folks who know Jesse by now - would like to extend our most heartfelt gratitude to the Humane Society of the United States and to Dr. Eric Davis. Dr. Davis travels all over the world and helps people learn how to better care for their animals; often ones they depend on for a livelihood. He has taken and continues to take his valuable time to oversee Jesse's ongoing recovery. This entire process is provided pro bono to our Jesse as an extension of the HSUS goal of assisting citizen groups who work in animal welfare. We greatly admire the work being done by the HSUS in promoting the understanding that we are all on this planet together and we will prevail as a whole or face a mutual demise. We cannot thank them enough for caring for Jesse.

Jesse's Update 2010