I’m not a “horse person.” I can count my experiences with horses — prior to meeting Aimee (Dr. Eggleston) in Virginia seven years ago — on one finger. I grew up only miles from renowned thoroughbred farms in Maryland and I went to school in the midst of large and pristine pastures in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia — dotted everywhere with horses. Yet, till I met Aimee my only experience with a horse was on a camping trip when I was five. My family took an hour long guided trail ride from some two-bit operation in Western Maryland. My horse veered into the woods and stopped and wouldn’t move.

To me, horses are unknown and inscrutable creatures and the past seven years of dating and then marrying an equine vet have done little to change that fact. It may be little wonder, then, that Aimee impresses me with her knowledge of, and skill in handling, horses. I am more than simply impressed, though, as my feelings tend toward wonder and trepidation.

When I first saw Aimee handle a horse, I thought she was fearless. Being in a 10 foot square “room” with a half-ton animal scares me. Seeing Aimee work with a horse, as she positions it, as she whispers to it and sometimes shouts, as she gives and takes ground, all while she delicately finds a vein, is an exhilarating sight. That I have learned that this dance, if you will, is a tenuous proposition terrifies me.

Part of this fear surely stems from my love for my wife, but partly this fear is grounded in the realities of a 1200lb., somewhat unpredictable animal, of unwelcome (to the horse) medical treatments and the compromised positions they require of medical professionals, and of an inclination to imagine the worst. If it were up to me, my wife wouldn’t do stifle x-rays and she wouldn’t do standing castrations. Lacerations in the inguinal area would have to heal on their own. I could be sick with worry, but I pacify my fear with the knowledge that Aimee is skilled and she is smart.

Aimee is 32 and she has 20 or more years of practice remaining. She’s young and the finish line is far. Aimee will be injured by one of her patients in the coming years. She will be injured; the statistics are not on her side. I pray that this likelihood fails to pass and if it does that the injury is not severe. But I (we) plan for the worst.

Only a few months ago, I received a call that Aimee was in the hospital after a horse kicked her in the neck. Luckily the injury presented Aimee with no lasting disability, though we initially thought that her hand was broken. The scariest thing about the incident is that it occurred when taking a horse’s temperature during a routine health exam. Maybe I should add rectal temperatures to the list of “medical procedures” my wife should not perform. I joke because the underlying risk of injury to Aimee is both serious and omnipresent. After getting to the hospital, seeing Aimee bruised and swollen and smiling in the emergency room, I knew she was safe and I hoped that kick was her injury (that was her due) and that we were lucky.

Tim Ahearn

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