Teen Fears Cancer Diagnosis For Her Beloved Rescue Horse | Bondi Vet

When you get an email from a 14-year-old girl pleading with you to help out a horse that she's fallen in love with, it's not something you can easily ignore. So I'm on my way now to meet Tash and her Charlie to see if there's anything I can do. Chris is responding to an SOS from the Safe Haven Horse Rescue Centre in Yanyi, 40km north-east of Melbourne. Is your eye hurting today, boy? Hmm? Waiting there for him is volunteer Tash, and nine-year-old Appaloosa gelding Charlie. The second I saw him, I just fell in love with him. He's so beautiful and gentle, but his eye was sort of swollen and it just kept getting bigger and bigger and I had no idea what was wrong, but I knew something wasn't right. Owner Lyndall opened Safe Haven last year to help horses like Charlie. I'm scared that it's a cancer, that maybe it can't be fixed. But I just don't want to give up. Hi there. Hi. How are you? Good, thank you. I can't believe you came. Well, trust me, that letter's a little bit hard to ignore, so... I am here now. Tash? Yes, Tash. How are you? Thank you so much. It's all right, no worries at all. Miss Dianna. Hey, Miss Dianna. This is my business partner, I'm Lyndall. Hey, Lyndall, how are you? Good, thank you. I've seen a few horses around here. Which one's Charlie? That's Charlie over there. Right there. When Tash first points out Charlie, he looks like a nice horse. Beautiful Appaloosa. Hey, buddy. But once you get closer, you can really see that weight on his eyelid winding it down. It's a big lump. Wow, that's really something. Where did he actually come from originally, Lyndall? He was surrendered to us by a lady, so he came to us with the lump on his eye, but it's probably doubled in size since he's been here, and that's only over the last few weeks to a month, yeah. So that's quick. When Lyndall mentions the fact this lump has grown so quickly over the last month, that really worries me. The lump is firm. It feels like it's got two parts to it. OK, yeah. I don't think it's attached to the bone around his eye, but I'm not sure how deep it actually pushes in, and that's probably the bit that worries me the most. OK. I'm trying to keep a bit of a poker face, because I don't really want to give away my concerns over this lump in front of Tash. I'm glad you actually wrote to me when you did, because if you were to leave that for any longer, then if it is something nasty, it could so easily just grow straight into his eye, and from there, there's not much that can be done. In a paddock with only very basic equipment, it's very hard to give them a definitive diagnosis about what's going on with Charlie. To get a true answer, what we need is a biopsy. All right, well, I might make a phone call now and see if I can arrange for him to go and visit some friends of mine nearby. Hey, Lynchie, how are you? Hey, mate, how you going? Yeah, good, good. I've got a horse that has a lump around its eye that doesn't look great. Chris is calling equine specialist Dr Andy Lynch at the Yarrambat Veterinary Clinic. Are you OK if I put him on a float and run him into you now? No problem. Thank you. I'll see you soon. See you soon. Bye. Good boy. He's just my whole world now, and the worst case for me would be that there's no cure for whatever it is and that I lose him. Here we go, Charlie. You're all right, buddy. Easy, buddy. Chris has arrived at the Yarrambat Veterinary Clinic with Tash, Lindle and Misty. Good boy. They're really keen to see what they can do for him. Good. OK. They are about to find out if the rapidly growing lump on Charlie's eyelid is cancerous. Yeah, it's pretty prominent there, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And it's not a good spot. Equine specialist Dr Andy Lynch is an old university mate of Chris's. Today he'll be overseeing Charlie's biopsy. So what I've explained to Tash is that we'd love to get a little sample of cells out of that lump. I think that's a good idea, Tash. This biopsy is really the key to us finding out exactly what this lump is. The plan is to give Charlie just a light sedation, go in with some local anaesthetic, numb the area, and then with a little biopsy punch go in there and grab just a tiny little core of tissue. That'll then get sent to the lab and we'll get an answer. Have you met Koda? No. If anyone knows about being positive, about getting through the tough times, it's this little guy. He's so small. Just pick him up. Misty, Lyndall and Tash are so nervous about Charlie's biopsy that Chris decides to introduce them to a little guy that beat all the odds. Koda's a horse I operated on a few years ago. He may be small, but he did have big problems. Go, baby, go. He essentially has adult-sized teeth inside that tiny head of his. They were pushing in and essentially growing into his skull. They had to be removed, but it wasn't easy. Here we go. Wow. It's extraordinary. It's just absurdly large. I mean, this is enough to put the tooth fairy into liquidation. It's ridiculous. If Koda can get through his little hurdles and obstacles, then fingers crossed Charlie can too. Yeah. While Koda's ordeal is over... So you shouldn't feel this. You don't need to worry. ..Charlie's is just beginning. Almost got it. OK, yep, we've got something there. Excellent. It looks quite fleshy, doesn't it? It looks pretty solid. Yeah, I think you're right to be concerned about this one. The sample will be sent to the lab and the results should be back by tomorrow. It's OK. I don't think I'm going to sleep at all tonight. I'll be up all night worrying. I'm just going to keep everything crossed and hope for the best. Come here. The thing I really want Tash to be preparing herself for is that tomorrow she may get bad news. Sometimes the reality of looking after animals is no matter how much you care for them, how much love you show them, you just can't help bad luck. Good night. Is that good? Yes, that's good. At the Yarrambat Veterinary Clinic in Victoria, Tash, Misty and Lindle are anxiously awaiting Charlie's biopsy results. Hey, guys. Hi. How are you? Couldn't keep away, huh? Yeah. No. Missed him too much. Yeah, I bet. Have you heard anything? Yeah, I have. So, it's an aggressive tumour. There's no other way of putting it. It's one that is aggressive. Can you die from it? Yeah. Breaking this sort of news, it's never easy, it's never nice. But when you're telling a 14-year-old girl that the horse she loves so much is really seriously ill, it doesn't get much harder than that. It's a massive shock. I mean, I knew that something was bad, but I just didn't really want to hear it. What we need to do is get in there straight away, operate, remove that tumour, but not just that. We have to hit it so hard by actually leaving little chemotherapy beads in there. OK. In my experience with these sort of things, we'll get one chance at this, and one chance only. It's hit Tash really hard and, you know, she's really feeling it. You just want to protect her, and she's only 14 years old. You're going to have all of us crying. I'm terrified for him, but he'll be OK. All right, Charlie? You a brave boy? In Yarrambat, Victoria, Charlie is about to undergo surgery to remove a cancerous lump from his eyelid. We're dealing with a very aggressive tumour. We have to be aggressive back. We're going to go in straight away, operate, remove the tumour, and we're actually going to leave some chemotherapy beads in there. We're going to sit in there long-term and prevent any cells from regrowing. The best plan for Charlie right now is actually to have this operation standing. The reason for that is that if you actually give them so much anesthetic, they fall to the ground, they can actually break their legs on the way down. Dr Andy Lynch will be managing the delicate operation with Chris. It'd be nice to take, you know, really generous margins around it, but I don't think we can afford to do that in this case. Bit of a sting, Charlie. The difficulty with this tumour is its position. It's flush up against a part of the skull where there's some important nerves and vessels. Right, that's nice and numb now. We're going to have to be fairly delicate about how we go dealing with this lump. So I'm just making an incision now around this tumour. Tricky area. Outside, it's all too much for 14-year-old Tash. Hopefully he's going to make it. It's probably a little bit more tightly held to Charlie's head than I would have hoped. It's actually sitting right up against his skull and we're actually having to break the attachments now. And there it is. Look at that. Here we go. This is the tumour here, and it feels like we've managed to get it all out, but the fact is there could be a few cells still sitting in there. So as insurance against this tumour regrowing, that's where the chemotherapy beads come in really handy. They're really small, aren't they? Back of punch, yeah. Nine chemotherapy beads will remain in Charlie's eyelid, killing off any residual cancerous cells. At $100 a bead, it's expensive treatment. Look at that. That's good. So now I've got those beads in, it's now time to close up. Time has gone quickly for me, but for the girls, it must seem like an eternity. Good boy. He's pleased to see you, Tash. I'm glad he's OK and it's finished. Yeah. I've got no idea what us and Charlie would have done without you both of you. It's all right. Not every day you come across a connection like this. I know he's not completely over everything yet, but there's a lot more hope than there was before. OK, so let's let him sleep this off. Yeah. And all going well. We can light him up in a few hours' time and get him home. OK. Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you so much. Look, you have to consider this to be a success. We've done everything we possibly can to make sure this tumour doesn't come back. Tash should be able to feel comfortable and confident that she does have a bright future with Charlie. What a relief. High fives? Yeah. Yay. Awesome. Now look who's ready to go home. Hi. Hey, Charlie. Hey. At the Yarrambat Veterinary Clinic, Charlie is ready to head back home to the Safe Haven Horse Rescue Centre. It still doesn't seem real. No. It really doesn't seem real. Yeah. Thank you. I know. With the cancerous lump removed from his eyelid, Charlie's future is now looking bright. Good boy. Hopefully Charlie and I will be together for a very long time. I'm really looking forward to being able to look after him and just care for him and be there for him. Good boy. It just goes to show what one girl's love for a horse can do. Tash somehow managed to bring together all these different people to achieve a goal, and that should be a bright future for her and Charlie. See you, Charlie.