Healing processes......slow but forward...

So, CB and Judy came back from Colorado horseless, but I'll let them tell that story as I wasn't there. =)
Socks went back to Tufts for his 4 week recheck on his collateral ligament to make sure it was healing correctly. He's been in a roundpen since he came home from Tufts. He hasn't been very happy alone all day either. Sereele came with him as she was having a myelogram done. It was a confusing day and the communication was a bit askew leaving me to escort CB and Sereele to her stall. Finally, I got to bring Socks to the ultrasound room to be checked. Well, he was screaming for Sereele who was screaming back so we had a bit of sedation......which he blew through...and then a bit more. Ah.....relaxation. Dr. Chope palpated his elbow first checking on the leftover bump from his abscess. She said it may be just something that stays and will be a cosmetic defect. No big deal to me. She did the ultrasound and was happy to report that the ligament seemed to be doing very well. Guess it was pretty bad right before he left to come home. YIKES! So, he got the ok to go in the "big boy" paddock with his brother and Sereele and let him acclimate himself to that for 2 weeks. If, in two weeks, he seems fine and not bothered, I can then ride at the walk! Looks like a lot of walking and with gradually adding in the trot, he should be all set to really work by late spring. WHEW! It's been such a chore with him being isolated and alone worrying about his leg. Now, if he'll only grow some hair on his leg where it was shaved.....that would be nice.

2011

Welcome to 2011. Not so sure of what's to come. CB and Judy will be leaving for Colorado on the 7th to look at a horse for her. Zakora....bay, fast, sound? and hopefully the one for CB. Socks has his recheck appointment to check on his leg on the 11th. Hopefully it's a good recheck. There are already plans for riding this year as the girls are headed to Cowshed Cabin in June. I'll be holding down the fort as I'll be just getting back from my honeymoon.....and who knows if I'll have a horse to ride myself. =(
Hopefully, there will be some great posts this year!

Happy Thanksgiving........

So, Thanksgiving, I got the phone call no horse owner really wants to get. Socks was dead lame and had a swollen upper leg. Now I'm frantic as I can't leave work and it took a little while to find my vet. She had to attend to another emergency before me so I got to the barn and ended up sleeping on some hay bales in my sleeping bag while I waited. She came in to examine him and he could barely even walk out of the stall! I was thinking the worst....it had to be broken! Shawn showed up with more jackets and a hot chocolate and unbeknowst to him, he was to be recruited for help with the exam. Dr. Williams took some x-rays and thankfully, nothing was broken. There was a small pinhole in his leg but it didn't appear to go anywhere. The injury was deemed a kick and stall rest and Bute was his future. We also hotpacked his leg and the weird lump moved down his leg and then the whole upper leg just stayed swollen. After a few days of him seeming to improve, I tried not to be too worried about him. But, then, he stopped getting better and seemed worse so, again, called the vet out. She could barely get him to flex his leg and made an immediate phone call to Dr. Garcia at Tufts to see if we could get in there. After about 30 minutes or so, Dr. Williams called back and said just go to Tufts, they're expecting you. Thankfully, CB was home and we made the trek to Tufts with Socks trailering by himself and Shawn leaving work to come with us. When we got to Tufts, Socks was a sweaty mess and only had one shoe on. How embarrassing! X-rays showed nothing and the pinhole again didn't seem to communicate with the elbow joint at all. He ended up having to stay overnight to get an ultrasound done. Around 5 pm, they called me to tell me that he had an abscess and it sat against the collateral ligament and they needed to lance it. UGH! Long story short, after waiting for the culture and sensitivity panel to come back, Socks spent one day short of two weeks at Tufts on IV antibiotics. Thank God for insurance! He got shoes put on about a week later and is continuing his stall rest until he goes back for an ultrasound recheck on the 11th of January. Summer was so nice and then.....BOOM......everything seemed to fall apart.

And it just keeps getting better.......NOT!

Socks ended up with some weird mystery lameness on one of our last rides together with CB and Sereele. We had trailered out to Upton? and were just starting to trot down the trail when he seemed just not right. We walked and he seemed fine, thought maybe he stepped on a rock but as we started to trot again, same thing...slight head bod and definately not right. I got off and headed back to the trailer sending CB on her way around a short loop on the trail. I was pleasantly surprised that Socks did not have a major meltdown walking away from his riding buddy. He called out a few times but did very well with me handwalking him back down the trail to the trailer. I let him graze a bit and all was well until he called and heard Sereele answer. YIKES, then the circling commenced and he seemed even more off than before! Luckily, Sereele and CB emerged from the trail and we tried trotting Socks out and he seemed fine again. UGH, maybe he didn't want to work. The next week was rainy so the week after I tried to ride again...still off. I called the vet and she took some radiographs and discovered that his pastern axis was off and suggested some wedged shoes. Tim came out and tried a wedge pad first that would be cheaper for me and give the same results....or so we thought. Socks couldn't handle the pad at all. It was a Myron MacLane pad with frog support and it must have been too much pressure on his feet. After another call to Dr. Williams and her and Tim talking, Socks got another pair of shoes on, this time the wedge shoe with leather pads as suggested. Again, he went lame....and of course, more phone calls were made to the vet. After about a week, he seemed fine and I got on him in the riding ring. He was poised to spring out from underneath me so after a few circles and a serpentine or two, I called it a ride and decided to longe him instead. He wasn't going to win this one at all. He seemed fine at the longe although a bit naughty. Later on in the week, I went out with CB and the dogs for a walk in the woods. Socks was so much better and happier and dare I write it....less ouchy with his new pads on. CB even got on him for one of the hills we had to climb on Mt. Pisgah. I was pretty happy that he was back in action and his gaits were nice and flowy again. YAHOO! It was also cool to see how my horse does under saddle as no one really rides him except me. =)

Fall fell =(

CB has continually tried to work Sereele out of her tripping. She's fine and then, without warning or really any reason sometimes, she would fall to her knees. It was very unsettling. So, she tried a barefoot trimmer, who skipped out on her, and then a farrier who put some shoes back on her, and hurt her....UGH! Poor Sereele was off for a while after he got a hold of her. What a jerk that guy was. Then, CB tried a different vet for a second opinion. He did some lameness exams on her and suggested a myelogram as one of her sides (the right?) seemed off. So, a neurology exam was scheduled at Tufts and away we went with Sereele alone in the trailer. What a trooper she was! She was definately nervous but trailered well. At Tufts, Dr. Bedenice performed the neuro exam. She could almost pull Sereele over with the tail tug at the walk and trot! YIKES! So, they took her to radiology for some neck x-rays to further investigate things. After a while, Dr. Bedenice came out with some preliminary news saying that they're pretty sure that there was a narrowing of Sereele's spinal column but they would have the specialists look at the rads too. They also have ortho do a lameness exam on Sereele and Dr. Jenei didn't really see anything that would pose as a lameness orthopedic-wise. Then, they showed us the rads and explained things to CB. It was a decrease in the diameter of the spinal column at the 4th vertebrae. Wobblers Syndrome. It was suggested that CB not ride her anymore to avoid any injuries that could occur to both her and Sereele if she had a really bad fall and they also suggested a myelogram to be totally sure. Although it was a point of closure for CB it was a heartwrenching discovery. How could it be that this pretty little mare have to be retired at the age of 5? She opted out of the myelogram. It's very invasive and would just tell her the same news. Her prognosis was fair to good. She may not have any problems at all or may get some arthritis in her neck down the line. So, with that, Sereele retired with her buddy Zak and hangs out eating, sleeping and getting loves. But, this leaves CB looking for another horse and so the next saga begins......horse shopping.

Welcome home!!! =)

Whew, so much has happened.....time to update this blog!

So, Speedy came back to live at Long Run Farm in late August. His mom was on her way back up to live up here too after a long time (forever it seemed) living in New Orleans. It took some growing pains and some switching around but he ended up sharing a pasture with Toya. Judy and Dave finally made it back up north a few weeks later. YAY!!! It's nice to have them back. Poor Judy had no place to really ride down south and his barn wasn't very close either. Now, Mr. Speedy gets to do some work more often and see his mom every day.

Chester NH.......or Deliverance?

So, being the intrepid riders that we are, CB and I drove out to Chester NH for another trail ride. No time limit this time. =) Lou and Becca were supposed to come with us but wimped out. Ha ha ha! It was a cool and overcast day and actually started raining at a pretty good clip on our way there. Oh sure, what would it be without weird weather right? We (I) decided that the 9 mile ride was sufficient and we were off after partaking in the yummy coffee cakes they offered for breakfast. The way out to the trail was down a paved road....oh yay. We had to pass by a weird Tudor style house with a rusty rooster "statue" in the front yard...pretty scary.....had to go down a hill (on pavement) and finally we got to the trail. I was having deja vu big time since we got there and then CB realized that we had done this ride before as well. I rode Zak so that's how long ago it was. The initial trail was very rocky and we picked our way along. We trotted where we could....kind of like at home. Then, we came out to powerlines with equally rocky trails and turkey buzzards looming over us waiting.........bad sign. Finally, we came out to a dirt road and we tried to go but both horses were scared and nervous about going forward. UGH! Then there was more roadwork...oh yay......there were a few nice trails we hit and we both cantered on purpose when we could. YAY! Then, you guessed it, more roads....we had come to the fork where the ride split off and I really wanted to just get the 9 over with, my Wintec was leaving white spots on Socks's withers and I was in my dressage saddle that fit a bit better but not much. Again, more roads and we crossed over and saw that we were going back into the woods. It was a nice dirt trail and we kept going not seeing any more blue ribbons to tell us how to get back. We came to a 4-way dirt intersection and there were no markers to be had....we turned back and ran into a couple who thought we had to go straight through the intersection. Well, that brought us to a shooting range......NOT where we wanted to be. We all headed back and CB and I took a left and the guy of the couple rode right and the woman said she'd stick in the middle and whoever saw something first yell out. The guy found the way home, yay. So, between going back and forth and being lost, we probably did close to the 14 miles.....;-) We headed back and of course, it was on a roadway. Socks was very excited to head home and as we were trotting up the shoulder, he started to feel like he was paralyzed and dragging his back legs.....OH NO! Of course, he was fine except for a tree branch stuck to his tail. CB got it out and we made it back to the trailer in one piece. The kids got to graze on grass for a bit and then we got to eat too. They were the best hamburgers I'd ever had, as I was so hungry. We grabbed our cookies to go and headed home without looking back. CB said to remind her never to go to that ride again....so, here it is....NEVER GO TO CHESTER NH again. The whole town was pretty scary itself......beautiful manicured lawns and houses with white trash hanging out on patio furniture....or the opposite, a trashy house with a brand new Challenger in the driveway. By far the weirdest thing we saw was the horse in a tiny turnout with an old Camaro with the doors off in the turnout with the horse and the water source was OUTSIDE of the electric tape. How was that animal supposed to drink?!?!? We also passed some small turnouts suitable for one or two horses with five or six of them in the lot!!!!! It was a trip at any rate......=)