Little Miss Pixie

Today, my patient (a tiny 5 year old Arabian mare named Pixie) had surgery to remove a bone fragment from a joint in her fetlock (ankle). For the surgery, all they did was make two tiny incisions. A camera went in one incision and instruments went in the other. At the end of the surgery after they had removed the bone chips, I got to use the camera to look around in the joint, which was really cool! Because our patient was so small, they couldn’t prop her leg up like a normal sized horse so I got stuck holding her foot in an extended position during surgery. I didn’t mind too much. It was a good workout for my arms. But the kicker came when I had to suture up the small incisions at the end. My hands were so fatigued from holding the hoof in place for a half hour. They shook so badly I could hardly grab the needle with my forceps. Talk about feeling like a pansy. I wasn’t nervous or anything—it was only two incisions and neither was even an inch long. But for the life of me I couldn’t make my hands stop violently shaking. But I smashed them against the horse’s leg enough to slow the shaking and got the job done. Little Miss Pixie is now short a few pieces of bone, but hopefully it will serve her better in the long run.