An Answer

There's a quick summary at the bottom if you want answers right away. This post is kind of dramatic, sorry about that, I wrote it last night when I was in a terrible mood and I'm not going to fix it. I am doing better this morning.


Wednesday morning I basically sat useless at my desk wondering how my horse was. I hadn't gone to the barn in the morning to see him because I'm not sleeping well so getting up at 4:45 was not an option.

It got to be 12:15 and I couldn't stand it anymore, I headed out to the barn. While I was driving there, I got a call saying that the vet was running an hour late. Woops, sorry office, but I was literally just looking up "abscess traveling up leg" and "swelling in middle of leg" and "why do my horses try to maim themselves all the time?" the entire time I was in the office.

I love this picture of him :) he's like "wait... I like work, can we
go back to the arena?"

TC had tried to take off his wraps, so they were a little bit bunched, but the WTF swelling was way down, still there but much smaller. He was still quite off at the trot, but sound at the walk.

I stuck him back in his stall to hang out while I sat and tried to read a book on one of the benches. I was swinging heavily between it's not that bad, probably just the abscess being crazy, he'll be fine and I bet he broke his leg into many pieces and the only thing holding it together is my hopes and dreams. I started feeling really sick so opted to play really stupid ipad games while cuddling the barn kitty until the vet called to say they were ten minutes away.

I got him out and brushed him, took some conformation pictures, hoping that this was not going to be the best he looked for the next year.

The vet arrived and was generally very nice, although a bit happy for my taste. Nothing like calling the vet out to come look at your broken horse and having them be happy (lol). She immediately commended me for getting the swelling down (hey I mean this isn't my first WTF leg swelling) as she poked and prodded at him, then grabbed her clippers and started making way for an ultrasound. No blocking, no hoof testers, it was obvious even then what it was. I didn't want to think about it, but I had a good idea what it was based on his response to her prodding in that one terrible location.

Trail ride this summer

TC got some good drugs that kept him quiet even though the barn we were in was getting construction done on it. I was really proud of him for being calm about all the noise and horses running around even in his drugged state. But I still probably wouldn't have sat so close to his big feet even when he was so sleepy.

I'm not the greatest at reading an ultrasound but even I could see the unhappy place at the origin of the suspensory where it had torn away from his leg. I could see the completely dense ligament become moth eaten as she went over the place where his leg had swelled so big the day before. The branches looked good though. Isn't it the little things in life? Hey at least this small portion of this extremely important structure that basically holds your horse's leg together doesn't look as fucked up as the rest of it does.

Still my favorite picture of him on the ground

She wasn't as good as my vet, who I am going to bring on for a second opinion once as I have the ultrasound pictures taken yesterday. She wouldn't give me a percentage for the tearing. She wouldn't tell me if it was horrible or mild. But a suspensory torn in two places is never mild, I kept thinking.

I kept my shit together, which honestly was amazing at this point because horrible thoughts were echoing in my mind, as we discussed his prognosis in vague terms. Because again, although happy vet is nice and does her job well, she is not my wonderful wizard of a vet who can predict the future. But TC can have a small paddock off of a box stall, he gets bute 2x per day, he gets surpass 2x per day, he gets wrapping all the time for 2 weeks, cold hosing for 2 weeks, and he gets 6 full months off of riding. He's only been being ridden for a little more than twice that amount of time. He's so young, I kept thinking.

Love that nose

I'm amazed I didn't burst into tears right then, hearing that I wouldn't sit on him again for six months, longer than I've owned him. I saved the tears for after the vet left. I locked myself in my car for a good long while, curled in a ball, doing my best to go back in time. They always say that you can't control what happens to you but you can control how you react to it, so I chose to react badly.

Thoughts like I can't believe this is happening to me again and he is so young turned quickly against me into what do I do to my horses that I've now had four soft tissue injuries in six years? and there's no way in hell I should be allowed to own a horse and at what point does this stop being bad luck and start being my fault? because my brain is hardly nice to me when things like this happen.

I relayed such thoughts to my mother, who is basically the best mom ever invented because the second that my text "suspensory" came in, she made arrangements to set up their barn for my second broken horse and to come grab him from so far away today. I can't believe how much I lucked out in the parent department, as my cost to keep TC just dropped significantly, opening up doors for treatment options.

Going to miss this view

So I sit here, the night before this post goes out, alternating between this cold hard numbness (when I can actually type) and just sadness (when I sit with my kitty and cry like a child). So much of me wants to go back to a happier time. This summer, riding with Barbi and Tracey, going on trail rides. Even back to that time where I had several cavities that needed to be filled and the drugs didn't quite mask the pain enough, that day was a blast. And I would adore going back to the day I had to break up with the man I thought I was going to marry, then move out of the house we shared together and back into my parents' place for the rest of graduate school where I had to see him every day. It would be a joy to return to that day.

It's sort of hilarious how much more important a horse can be than all those other things.

As for the future, I don't know, I'm not thinking further ahead than May. But for now, TC will be at my parents' ranch resting and learning from Rico that rehab doesn't always have to be a bad thing. Different scenarios are flying through my head on how to handle this, what the future holds for TC, what the future holds for me.

I'm trying not to think about what this means for my riding between now and May, because when Rico was lame, I was still a horse trainer, riding 6-8 horses per day. Sure, I preferred Rico, but I still got to ride. Now I am horseless. I mean I'm sure there are horses I can ride, and I am thinking about those options and am going to figure something out. I know plenty of trainers who would let me sit on horses, I have friends with horses, my clients would relish in the opportunity for free training rides, or I could just take some time off. But I don't think I can take six months off of riding, I feel like that wouldn't be setting me up well to get on a then five year old horse who hadn't been ridden in six months.

So interested in everything

Regardless of what happens this winter/spring, for the rest of this week/weekend and into next week/weekend, I do have a horse. My sweet wonderful Rico, the horse who came back from injuries quite a bit worse than the one that my completely undeserving young horse is suffering from. So we're going to have a bit of fun this week. He was always the best at cheering me up, even if he was often the reason why I was down.


Alright for you impatient people:
What is it? TC tore his RF suspensory in two places (at the origin away from the bone and then about half way down).

How did he do it? Very likely it was an accident in his paddock, he hasn't done anything recently that would result in a healthy ligament ripping away from the bone. I think it's from climbing in his paddock and then having his heel slip backwards off of the railing. From now on, he will always have plywood or no climb wire on his paddock fences.

What is the prognosis? For now he is going to be at my parents' ranch on stall rest and while he is there, I will get my wizard vet down to give me an actual treatment and rehab plan. Tentatively he is on stall rest until May and then I will start him back with tack walking.

Are you bringing Rico back? No, as it stands now, Rico will stay at my parents' place too, there is an extra spot. First, I need to make an adult decision to not take on additional costs, as my parents' place is cheaper than my current boarding situation. Second, Rico is not the soundest thing in the world now that he isn't being maintained and I don't know how he would hold up to regular work. I'm not willing to do a bunch of injections or put him back on his fancy shoeing cycle (he's in straight shoes at 5 weeks now down from 3 weeks + pads) just so I have something to bop around on for six months.

Will you be riding? I don't know yet. I want to keep riding to keep my fitness and coordination up so that when TC comes back, I won't get launched. I have a lot of options as to how to keep riding (including taking part time work as someone's assistant, riding for trainer friends, riding friends' horses, riding clients' horses), but I will be exploring those options once as I see how much time I have and how much/in what context I want to ride. I generally do not enjoy catch riding as much as I enjoy having my own horse.

How are you doing? I'm doing fine as long as people don't remind me how sad this is, please try not to make me cry at work! This is not the world's worst thing that ever happened to anyone. Although this post is kind of dramatic, but I wrote it last night and I wrote this summary today when I'm feeling better.