About 4 weeks ago, I came home from appointments and suddenly found myself in the midst of a crisis with my beloved horse, Palmer. He was shifting his weight back and forth on his hind hooves, circling, then lying down only to get back up. It was so strange! I monitored him, called my barefoot farrier for his advise, gave him Banamine, and walked him for hours because we thought he was in the midst of a colic episode. By 9:30 pm I was in a panic, called my farrier back, begged him to come and stay with me and Palmer through the night. I felf very much alone and frightened. Teddy came, and we made it to the next day.
Two days later, Palmer was worse so I called the vet out. She inspected, injected and projected what she thought might be the issue, put him on additional pain and muscle relaxing meds, told me to ice and massage his hips, said it wasn’t colic, thought it was something I had never heard of – Compartment Syndrome, told me to feed him, let him rest, and then asked me the all important question: What do you want to do at this point? Palmer was in so much pain I wasn’t sure it was right to let him suffer any longer. But, he is only 13 years old, in the prime of his life, and prior to that had a perfect health record. I told her I wanted to give him 24 hours on the additioanl meds and treatment plan, then make a decision about his life.
I did absolutely every single thing she told me to do, and miraculously, the next morning I saw a glimmer of improvement. Then, by that afternoon Palmer seemed almost normal. The blood test results came back indicating no issues other than musclular. The vet was surprised. I was grateful.
By the following morning, Palmer was back to his happy healthy self, trotting out of his stall for a day of grazing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! My prayers had truly been answered. And, to this day, we still don’t know the “why” of the situation.
But, during the many hours I spent with Palmer, I had plenty of time to think…to think about him, how much I love him, and interestingly enough, how similar this experience is to that of my career as a Realtor®. Just like what a vet experiences, I am sometimes faced with a transaction crisis that requires my focus and experience to help navigate my clients through to the other side. I have to pull the proper “tools” out of my tool box. I have to be calm when my clients are freaking out. I have to share my expertise so they have a modicum of confidence that we will get will get through this together, and hopefully to a happy ending. Situations arise that often have nothing to do with us, and everything to do with the other side of the transaction. Sometimes it is the lender or even escrow that has thrown a cog in our wheel. But with patience, persistence, even prayer, I have found that there is a path to take. Usually, we have a happy ending. And, for those few and far between times when we don’t, I am still there to help them figure out their next step. Why? Because there is always a next step. And the journey is worth it!
