Ella

[trillium]

Jamie, could you please post your pictures of Ella? I would like to see her have a remembrance thread so her story can be told. I know I will not soon forget her and Lily.

[shekaberry]

Oh, little Ella. She was sooo sweet and quiet, not at all like the Lily-bug who was everywhere at once. So sad that they never reached their full potential.

[schwung]

Oh, thank you Laurie. You are right, her story should be told.

I can't seem to find any photos of Ella when she first came. When I went to pick her up from the vets where she spent a week and a half after she was removed from the auction, much of that time in a sling, she was so weak, she tried to get in the trailer and then just lay down and wouldn't get up for several minutes. We thought a lot of it was emotional - having almost died she seemed to be emotionally scarred and anything stressful would cause her to shut down. But slowly she got stronger and more and more of her personality began to show. She was extremely sweet and she had a little diamond on her nose that was her "kiss spot" and she had to endure many kisses from me, but she actually seemed to enjoy it and would push her little nose in your face for her kisses. By the end of April she was acting like a normal foal, running circles around her dam, bucking, playing. When we found her down that morning, it was like the old Ella - she just seemed like she had given up. She would eat, and drink, but she would not even try to get up, and if you forced it, she would just hang limply and refuse to stand. It was as if she had just given up, and decided she was going to die. When she did die 3 days later, with no struggle, no sign of pain, we actually thought perhaps she had died from her emotional damage from what she had been through, as we could not phsyically find an explanation. It wasn't until the necropsy revealed the massive parasite damage to all her internal organs, especially her heart, that we knew that no matter what we had done for Ella, she would never have lived to see her first birthday.

Here is Ella in early April. We had had her a few weeks at this point. She had very bad rain rot and her skin and coat was disgusting. We had a very warm day in April, I think it was near 80 degrees, so we gave her a bath. Here she is before her bath:




And after her bath:


Here are the photos I posted of her previously, taken about a week before her death:








Taken by Leah:








Taken by Monica:

[clearlybluebreeze]

Ohhhhh....Jaime...
Those pictures of you and Ella are so beautiful....brings tears to my eyes thinking about her and little Lily.

[trillium]

Thank you. Reading about her just breaks my heart. Her and Lily's stories are worthy of my tears.

[schwung]

Monica had a few pictures of Ella's arrival. I had to crop out the other horses, and they were small photos to being with, so they aren't very good quality.

Napping, arrival day:


And, Bonnie and I helping her to stand: