by Gimme a Dream

Created on: June 22, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

I lost a 2-year-old filly, Sam's Pride in February 2008, to seizures. I've had horses for 45 years and I had never heard of a horse taking seizures before. Apparently, I wasn't the only one.

I had asked the vet about the strange behaviors that this young filly was having and then the horse owners at the local race track, including her previous owner, if they could identify the actions. Mostly the men said "no", gave me a weird look, like I was exaggerating and said it must be some form of colic. So I agreed with them. If nothing else I learned a lot about colic and I learned that my dear Sammy was never colicky.

We live on an island, in the middle of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. At the end of January, the ice starts to form and fill the Gulf, stopping all ocean going traffic, leaving the islands in isolation for two months. The ferry service resumes around the first of April.

The last week in February, at 5:00am, Sammy fell down in her favorite place, in the large greenhouse, next to the house and stayed down. We could hear the disturbance and we went running for the door. Sammy was lying on a very soft area of ground close to an electrical outlet, where I placed heat lamps and kept the temperature in the building warm. I also kept hot water bottles around her, on the hay covered, soft ground and under the two winter horse blankets that she was covered with. Her body temperature had dropped to a level that concerned me and at the suggestion of the veterinarian, I brought her body temperature back to normal levels.

Up until this point, I had been using the word convulsion' to describe some of her strange actions, which would explain severe colic in young horses. When she fell, she had a grand mal' seizure, but since I had never seen this thrashing about before, I still used the word convulsion' when describing her strange actions. But I also told people that she was thrashing about, even though it didn't appear like she was trying to get up. She didn't seem to have any pain, however she seemed confused and very tired after the thrashing stopped. Thirty hours after she first went down, a group of horse men and I tried to lift her in a sling, set up with a block and tackle. Mostly she refused to help and behaved like a kitten being moved about, in its mother mouth. Still, it was obvious that she had strength and the ability for strong movement, in all four of her legs.

I had a second veterinarian in to see her, about an hour after we tried to sling her up and the lady

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