The Last Ultrasound

Yesterday was TC's fourth and last ultrasound, at least for now, in this terrible series of events. Yes, LAST ULTRASOUND for at least 90 days depending on his soundness blah blah blah. But LAST ULTRASOUND was all I heard.

Hi mom, I would talk to you but you forgot
carrots and there's a fan moving slowly

If you remember from our third (and second) ultrasound, the main issues we were facing were twofold.

First, the horse had yanked the suspensory out of the origin site enough where he took some bone with him. To fix this, after the second ultrasound, TC was put on a supplement by Platinum Performance called Osteon, as well as given an Osphos injection. Both are used to increase bone density and we hoped that it would help this site. At the third ultrasound, not much had changed. It wasn't getting worse but it wasn't getting better necessarily.

Second, the suspensory had tried to adhere itself to the splint bone. This was our biggest fear initially, since when this happens, IF the adherence is tighter than the suspensory itself, then as the suspensory stretches, it will become irritated. This puts us in chronic suspensory land and effectively ends TC's riding career unless I wanted to do surgery. I felt wishy washy about the surgery, but at the second and third ultrasounds, my vet felt like this wasn't going to be as much of an issue. But we weren't sure how it would react to trotting. This ultrasound is to look at how both of those issues responded to more work.

Still kind of derpy, but much fitter

Now TC is trotting 15 minutes and has been sound as far as the people at the rehab center could tell. He is only trotted on soft ground in the eurociser so it's not like minor lamenesses are obvious. The goal at this last ultrasound was for it to be the last ultrasound, for him to be given the okay to start undersaddle work, and more importantly, to come home. A lot was riding on this ultrasound.

Because of the heat, I got up early and rode a horse, then taught a lesson before the ultrasound. I shouldn't do this. Much like the last three ultrasounds where I worked from home and then went to see him, I basically was worthless at doing my job. Luckily teaching and riding come more naturally, so both horse and rider didn't get shafted. I just couldn't tell you what they worked on. My brain was just like "pleaselethimbeokay INSIDE LEG PUSH HIM OVER pleaselethimbesound OUTSIDE REIN MORE CONNECTION pleaselethimcomehome THAT CIRCLE HAS CANCER FIX IT NOW pleaselethimbeokay."

Around 10:15 I was finally on the road to the vet office. I had put my lesson earlier than necessary since every time I'm on time, they're early. And last time I got to hang out with TC in the stall beforehand, which made me happy.

He was a little sassy on the longe line

Interested in everything but staying quiet

This time I beat them there. It ended up not being too bad because I got to see TC come off the trailer. I expected him to be kind of explosive coming off- he was not. He arrived with another horse. I expected him to be attached to that horse and scream for the horse when it left- he was fine. A horse had been put down so was covered with a tarp right near the stalls. I expected him to be spooky and nervous about that horse- he was not.

He was so quiet and relaxed. I led him to the stall and he just sort of hung out. No screaming, no pacing, no throwing himself around. Just so chill about everything. I was much less chill. I'm normally the chill one!

When they went to longe him, he just quietly trotted around. Sometimes he would shake his head, but nothing like the explosions from last time. Nope, just quiet baby horse with a couple moments of head shaking. What? Craziness.

He was completely sound- both fetlocks dropping really well. I did get a nice lecture from the vet, and I now have a farrier. Rico's farrier. Because TC needs shoes with plastic pads (pads in the summer only). He basically isn't growing any heel and his coffin bones are RIGHT next to the ground. I'd rather lose the one and a half lessons a month in farrier fees than not be able to sell the horse in the future because he has no feet. Yay for expensive shoes, ugh.

Dude 

The ultrasound was really good too! Even though TC has been in a LOT more work than he was, his leg is still improving!

The bone issues are completely resolved. No more Osteon (phew, so expensive) and no additional Osphos injection needed (phew, SO expensive).  The ultrasound did show what my vet called a "hidden splint," which means that his cannon bone has a bump on it under the suspensory. It's smooth and doesn't get in the way, but it just means that there is less room in there for the suspensory to swell if it gets irritated. I don't mind that, because if it does get irritated, I want to know!

The adherence is still there, though it's very small (one square centimeter or so) and doesn't seem to be bothering him at all. My vet says that if the adherence is loose enough where it never yanks at the suspensory, it won't cause problems. If it does yank at the suspensory, we need to catch it soon and do surgery to remove the splint bone and clean the adherence up.  Of the horses who had this same problem, only the jumpers have needed surgery because they land on their feet a lot harder off of the big jumps than the prancy dressage horses. Dressage horses really don't get as much wear and tear on the front legs, although both of my dumb horses having ST injuries in front hardly proves that.

Can I ride it yet?

Starting to get sleepy

So we aren't out of the woods on that adherence yet. We have 90 days to have TC in full work undersaddle and then if he's sound and okay by then, my vet says that it'd be very unlikely that we would need surgery after that. So on October 6th, we're officially back.

The best news out of all of this was that TC does get to come home!!! One week from today I'll have the baby horse back in my life full time, and I am so excited about that! But still very nervous about the 90 days. I'm trying to take an it-is-what-it-is approach and just enjoy him and whatever happens happens.

Obviously hearing that he could come home made me ask lots of questions, here is a bullet point list about what information I got:

• TC can canter! My vet wants him in a very collected canter to keep him off his forehand,. Upon hearing this, I laughed at him. The horse has no collected canter, he has no working canter, we have a frantic run sort of thing? So I am going to push his cantering out a few weeks so I can work on the collected trot first.  
• TC is okay to go into his paddock, my vet said to keep an eye on him and put him in a box stall if he gets silly. I think he'll be quieter to ride if he's out so hopefully he stays quiet in the stall and paddock. 
• No turnout until after the 90 day waiting period.
• No trail riding at all until after the 90 day waiting period.
• No real trail riding (hills) until next year, and always be careful about walking downhill.
• No jumping until next year, but small cavallettis to get him picking up his feet are fine after the 90 days. 
• Keep him fit so he doesn't get tired and drop his fetlock. 
• Put him in Sports Medicine Boots and tack on a piece of plastic over his suspensory. This means I can return the boots I got from Dover (glad I didn't put him in them). I'm not sure how to make a strike guard, but I will figure it out. 

I also asked about the future. My concern is that he will not be okay to do the extended trot or the passage, since both of those are hard on the tendons. It was something that made me so nervous with Rico. But my vet said that by the time he's ready training-wise to do those things, his leg should be totally fine. Like, it's literally just these 90 days and then I can consider him completely healed and okay to do anything. He said maybe not jumping 4' or galloping on the hills, but I knew he wasn't going to be an event horse at the vet check because of his feet anyway.

So yay! Grand Prix is still tentatively in his future, though obviously unlikely for other reasons. At least (hopefully) his physical health won't be what keeps us from that level. It's likely going to be his natural talent, his rider's lack of natural talent, and logistics that keep us from the level :) which I'm totally fine with.

I don't care if he bucks me off if I can feel this trot first

I'm cautiously excited. I won't feel capable of relaxing until the beginning of October, if at all, and I'm already diverting money into an account for his surgery and am prepared to send him back to rehab this winter (the fact that I'm doing this should tell you how fucking quiet the horse is being because there was a time where he was nutty enough for me to have not chosen to do the surgery). BUT I'm trying to just focus on being excited about riding him while preparing myself financially for the worst. It can't hurt because I mean if he doesn't need surgery, I can buy a saddle I will have a bigger emergency fund. I'm also going to insure him, but the insurance very likely won't cover the surgery.

One more week to wait and then I get to have that baby horse home and attack the hell out of his mane and pathetic feathers. Oh, and RIDE him. And now, making a shopping list for my tack locker, I called my dad and he has an amazing idea to get it working for me! So excited to have my pony back!!