It will take time but yes.
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The vet described it as a ticking time bomb and with no history of colic until the day we lost her, no way to know it was there. I have some comfort in knowing she was happy and working and cherished literally until her last day, but those minutes or hours of fear and pain before our BO found her and called the vet haunt me. I would never have known for sure what happened except that the equine hospital we took her to is attached to the big vet school here. They asked my permission to do a necropsy as a teaching case and I agreed.
I had literally never heard of strangulating lipoma until then and yet now I’ve found so many other people who have gone though the same thing. Sadly it doesn’t seem to be rare enough. And since my current gelding is now 22, there’s a constant fear in the back of my mind that it will happen to him too.
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Oh, I just want to send a big hug to everyone! 
This is pretty much what I was told, too. My mare was 18 years old and a Paint/TB; her medical team stated that these lipomas have a higher prevalence of growing in older horses as well as stock breeds. My mare did colic twice with me before, and maybe a few times with the previous owners, and it had been several years since her last colic until her final day. We thought at first that she was colicing because she had gotten cast in her stall, but once we got her up and walking she became ataxic behind. I still cannot believe that she stood for the entire two hour trailer ride and backed off of the trailer, walked into the exam room, and stood long enough for everyone to start working on her. The lipoma was wrapped around her ileum.
Similar to @JB’s situation, I was told that she had very 50/50 odds of surviving the jejunojejunostomy due to the extreme amount of necrosed tissue, and her quality of life would have been very poor. It was nice of them to offer but like @JB said, I felt that it would have incredibly selfish of me to ask her to stay for me when it was time for her to go. Since I brought her to a university hospital, I did let them practice the procedure once I had gotten my time to say goodbye when she was euthanized; she was my greatest teacher and there she was, still teaching.
I think all of our horses are playing together up there.
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I just don’t have the bond with my remaining horse that I did with my first two mares, both of whom I loved very much. I feel guilty that I don’t dote on her or feel for her the way I did for her mother, but it’s true. I’ve avoided commenting on this thread because I do feel that way and I wish I didn’t.
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I lost mine in 2013. While he was almost 27, he went suddenly without warning. It was quite the shock; I thought we had a lot more time left together.
To be honest, nothing has been quite the same without him. I still enjoy riding and my other horses. The pain of his loss is no longer intense. But I haven’t felt the same bond or same love for a horse since him. I don’t know how to explain it other than to say things are different. They are still good, but it feels like the colors of the palate are muted since I lost him.
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THIS 
Things I have learned -
- Each being - horse/dog/cat/bird/human/etc - is unique. 1 does not replace another and as such each relationship is special and unique.
- Dont let the pain of saying good bye replace all of the good times.
- Its OK to mourn. We all do it differently. However dont get stuck in your mourning and if you do ask for help.
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I felt similar after losing Yo after 24 years and then Melly after 8 months.
I am a fan of Edna St Vincent Millay and the final lines of her piece, What Lips are what sum it up for me:
Summer sang in me
A little while
That in me sings no more.
.
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There is no horse that has even come close to what Hat Tricks, my first horse, was to me. This is because they are not Hat Tricks.
But each horse is a true treasure, to be loved for their own unique life. Just because another horse is not your heart horse does not mean that the newer horse is not important in your life.
What are you going to do about this? Stop dealing with horses at all?
Every single horse I ride now benefits from what Hat Tricks taught me about riding, training horses, and life itself. HE is not replaceable, but then no horse is truly replaceable if they get so deep into your psyche that you still mourn them after over 30 years.
The saying “it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all” is very applicable to horses. The new horse may not be your deepest love, but that new horse CAN become your friend at a different level.
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I lost my heart horse almost twenty years ago and every time I sit on a new horse I’m hoping to duplicate the feeling I had when I rode her. I got her when she was eight, still green after a short career as a racehorse and being turned out for a while after that. She had a gorgeous head with enormous dark eyes, an ugly ankle and club foot, and by far the best canter I’ve ever sat on in my life. We did everything, from showing to foxhunting to eventing to trail riding. She never said no and I did things on her I’d never try on another horse.
When I rode her there was this humming electrical current running between us in a form of communication I’d never had before and I’ve been unable to find it again. In a way she ruined me for other horses, even though I’ve had many accomplished, quality animals since, including her son.
Ten years after I bought her I found her dead in the field not long after she weaned the one foal she gave me. Apparently she had a heart attack or some other sudden traumatic event, as there was no indication of any struggle after she went down. Even though I’ve been lucky to have many amazing and successful horses since then, I haven’t been able to find her true replacement and I guess I never will. It’s my holy grail mission, and at 56 years old I feel that I might be running out of time.
So OP, you may never feel the same again with any other horse but that doesn’t mean you should stop trying.
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I am another who lost my homebred heart horse to a strangulating lipoma - he was 20. We gave surgery a try, but he was one of those for whom motility never restarted. I have cried many a tear over my beloved Mr. B.
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Re-read the quote from eightpondfarm above.
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Worth a repeat
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WIsdom. I lost a “heart horse” in 2021 to a massively enlarged spleen that was discovered after many, many colics and finally, surgery. The horse I"d adopted to keep him company had just arrived and has a totally different personality. Roo was sweet, kind, and beautiful and his new pasture mate is beautiful but not sweet and workmanlike when in continuous work but opinionated. I wouldn’t call him my heart horse at all, although I love him.
I just bought (May) another OTTB out of the Bowie kill pen, because I could see that sweet, kind, personality in the video, to keep the “company” horse company! He IS sweet and kind and a “baby horse” in the sense that he is 4 but doesn’t seem to have had the love and attention that many have by this age. But he is in my pocket—and everyone else’s and smart and kind of goofy. What has surprised me is that I love this new guy to pieces and have no idea what he knows yet or can do, but I"ve come to love my cranky guy even more because he’s showed his heart a little bit and how much (finally at age 10) he does appreciate love and affection even though you’d never know it most of the time. Love grows and changes. It’s pretty amazing and powerfully resilient.
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I guess I should consider myself lucky to have had two heart horses.
My first, a five year old Arab, a son of Tuhutmos. He didn’t like dressage but became the handiest softest trail horse ever. Colicked at 22, trailered to clinic, I chose euthanasia over surgery after he collapsed in the aisle while I was leading him.
My last, a paint, sweet and bomb proof. I found him dead in the barn yard when I went to feed breakfast. I had been in the barn till 9 the night before dealing with an abscess in one of my minis and paint horse was his normal cheerful and helpful self, observing all across the stall door.
This one was harder because there was no hint of trouble. I am still in shock from seeing him lying there.
I talked to his breeder who told me the sire, his heart horse, died the same way, at the same age, 19. And another had an aneurysm. So who knows.
I am traumatized, when I go to the barn I have this fear of finding one of the minis dead, they are both early 20’s. My heart is broken and I don’t know if this is the end of my having -a- horse life.
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