Christmas Magic

Yes, because THIS happened!!!

Last Sunday night we had a nasty storm system moving into the area. Low pressure systems have always given me headaches: when we lived in the tropics, I always knew when the tropical storms or hurricanes were really going to hit. Since moving to the Northeast, we discovered that I still have the same issue...but with winter storms. I can literally predict the weather these days based on the amount of sinus pressure I get 24 hours before the event. The head trauma helped to enhance my "superpower".

Okay, so I can't control the weather like Storm but I can at least warn you about it. ;)
To a degree.

On Monday I woke up to pouring rain and so dizzy from the sinus pressure that I couldn't walk a straight line. Vomited 10 times before I could get some ondansetron down, and then just crawled back into bed. I felt as bad as I had on the day of the accident. It was awful. I was so upset: it was probably the lowest mental point I'd been at since the accident. I slept two more hours and got up to run errands with Charles. I was able to function on Dramamine and Advil Cold & Sinus. As the day wore on, I felt better and somehow, magically, the dizziness pretty much disappeared by Tuesday morning. And I mean 98% of it disappeared. It was the most normal I'd felt in a long time, even with the craziness at work over the holiday. I was running down the hospital hallway to grab yet another emergency and thinking, "OMG I can actually do this now!" It was pretty awesome. I just didn't want to get too excited because of what had happened on Monday.

I had been planning on trying to ride this weekend for the first time since the accident. It was honestly the one thing I'd really wanted for Christmas: to be able to ride again. And it seemed like the Powers That Be were going to grant me my wish.

Friday finally came around and I woke up way too early but hung around the house so I could open Christmas gifts with Charles (we had been working opposite schedules over the holiday and hadn't really seen one another since the 23rd) before he had to leave for work at 10:30 am.

And then I sort of puttered around the house for the next two hours. You'd think I'd be excited, right? No, I was actually pretty nervous. But I finally figured I could just go to the barn and play it by ear: if I ultimately felt that riding was a Really Bad Idea once there, then I could just longe the girls instead.

So off I went and felt better and better about the whole idea the closer I got to the barn. Once there, I helped Kathy and Zoe get the hay ring Kathy had ordered for the future round bale set up. And then I went to get Lily.

She stopped eating when she saw me coming down to the big field. She was a tiny speck in the distance, but she saw me. She started walking towards me when I was a few yards from her. (I would love it if she would canter up to me when I call her name, but just having her stroll towards me or wait for me to come to her is enough. She really did use to run away from me as recently as a year and a half ago.)

She zig-zagged while walking behind me, looking back at her herd but the other three mares continued grazing unconcerned.

I tied her up at the fence and gave her a flake of hay to eat while I groomed and tacked her up. Lily was super calm and relaxed. I longed her very briefly in the paddock in front of the barn, just having her trot around me twice in each direction to see where her brain was at. Since all I've done with her in 6 weeks is longe her two times. And she was absolutely fine.

So I got on. She'll stand still for me to swing on and normally she tries to walk away from the mounting block before I have my right foot in the stirrup. It is an argument I've had with her for a long time but fussing at her about standing still sometimes just makes her more reactive.

This time, however, she shifted her weight as if to move...then chose to stand still. I'd like to think that she decided to wait because maybe something about me didn't feel quite right? We walked around the paddock on a loose rein and then I played with some lateral movements at a walk while holding the reins in one hand: leg yields, quarter turns and changes of direction, whoa and reinback. We walked and we walked and we walked. Initially I thought I'd just walk for 30 minutes, but about 15 minutes in I decided to try trotting. We trotted 5 steps and I realized that posting at the trot was still a definite no-go. Back to a walk. And then I thought, "I wonder if I'd be okay at the canter?" I must've suggested it with my body because Lily just picked up a canter from the walk without me asking for it the second I formulated the thought.

And so we cantered...and I was FINE! No dizziness whatsoever! So we cantered in both directions around the paddock a few times, transitioning from walk to canter and canter to walk. It was like I'd never stopped riding.

After that we called it a day.

Love her!

The mares all had their dinners and then they were all released in the back field so they could investigate the hay ring. Deja was leery about it, Gracie snorted at it then walked over to investigate, Queenie went and stuck her head in it right away looking for hay, and Lily walked over and sniffed it.

That's Lily in the blue sheet. Gracie is wearing the green.

And then she stuck her head in it too.

On Saturday I headed back out with Charles. Lily was a little spicier this time but still very good. Charles took photos:

Leg yielding while riding one-handed.

We started with a long walk warm-up then added the lateral work gradually. It was basically the same warm-up from the day before. And then Lily picked up a trot of her own accord, her slow smooth trot...and I realized I really can ride the trot if I don't post!

Please ignore my hideous equitation and just look at Lily. I was using the inside leg to ask for bend. Heel should be down anyway.

And then we cantered!

I called it a day at around 45 minutes. It was a really great ride and it was wonderful beyond words to be able to ride normally again.

Lily barely broke a sweat. I set her up with her dinner while I showed Charles how to longe Gracie in the Bungee Straightjacket: to my surprise, he had asked me several weeks ago if I would show him how to longe. I set up the whole rig for him, explaining what each part is supposed to do so he would understand what he was looking at and the mechanism of the gadget, but I told him I don't really want him to worry setting up the bungee system himself especially since he only really works with Gracie when I'm around.

Gracie was hot to trot and more than a little zoomy to start with, so I had to work her on calming down, which seemed an exercise in futility. The mare really, really needs consistency so that she can be consistent. I can't lose my patience with setbacks when I can't work her regularly at the moment. Charles squatted on the ground to watch a safe distance away. I was able to show him her whoa and how he needs to immediately release the pressure on the longe line as a reward when she responds to his request. I showed him how to ask for changes of direction from the whoa. G-mare obeyed but continued to be very "up" while in motion. I eventually gave up and handed the longe line to Charles hoping that maybe with a different person holding the line Gracie would settle down.

I wish I had taken photos. I'm still doing something wrong with my energy around her. She was zoomy for Charles too in the beginning and I did have to adjust the rig and thread the longe line through the inside bit ring to clip it to the surcingle to give him a little more control. But soon she had settled and was trotting out really, really nicely for him, reaching into the contact, drooling and stepping up underneath herself like a dressage horse. Charles did an excellent job at touching and releasing pressure on the longe line when needed and using a very quiet, very calm body language. Not something I told him about; he just picked up on it while watching. He really is a natural around these animals.

He hand walked Gracie afterwards to cool her out and then she too had her dinner.

It was a great first weekend on our way back to true normalcy.

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

Year End Meme

1. What did you do in 2014 that you'd never done before?
I competed in endurance!


2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for 2015?
I'm doing a separate goals review post, but I didn't really keep any of my goals for myself. However, the ones I set for Lily were far, far exceeded: my original plan for 2014 was to do one LD on Lily and instead we did two 50's.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes. Charles's best friends had their first children. This was kind of epic in different ways: Victor is the one other person outside of family that he's known the longest. (I'm the other person Charles has known the longest.) We thought for a long time that he'd never really settle down...until he met the woman he married. He fell HARD, hell-over-heels in love with her, and it's been really awesome to see him posting pics of himself and his wife all over FB for the last couple of years. He'd never done that before. He's a proud and dedicated daddy: his FB is now full of pics of both his wife and his son.  The other friend, Will, was also sweet to watch: he used to be a crazy party animal in his heyday and Charles's companion when they hung out in the Puerto Rican and later Floridian rave scenes when they lived in Orlando. Will met the woman of his dreams a few years ago and never looked back. He is madly in love with his wife, and they also welcomed their firstborn, a daughter, into the world this year. Will's photos of his little girl are truly heart-warming, and it's obvious that his little one is all he thinks about! Coming from a situation where my dad abandoned the family, it's wonderful to see two men so dedicated to their families. There is something to be said about Puerto Rican men ;) but also about the loving women that have brought out the best in them.


4. What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014? 
A horse trailer of our own. And to live closer to the barn. In FL we lived THREE MILES from the barn. I can't even begin to tell you how awesome that was. While the current 10-mile, 30-minute drive is way less than what other bloggers drive, it makes it harder to make it to the barn every day when you have a weird work schedule. I'd love to live closer.


5. Did anyone close to you die?
No.


6. What countries did you visit?
All of our travelling was within the US.


7. What date from 2014 will remain etched in your memory, and why?
June 14. The first time Lily and I rode and completed 50 miles, over the most difficult trail of the East Coast.

8. What was your biggest achievement of 2014? 
Turning Lily into an endurance horse. Sorry, this year really did revolve around endurance. It was all I prepared for and thought about when I wasn't physically at work.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I was never able to get my act together to even start compiling the case studies to do my veterinary technician specialty in Emergency and Critical Care. I was SO burned out at work this year that the last thing I wanted to do was have to think about work when I wasn't actually working. Thankfully the burnout disappeared when we were switched back to three 12-hour shifts a week.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Bronchitis and a concussion.


11. What was the best thing you bought? 
I was so excited when we bought Gracie. So much hope and happiness revolving around bringing her into our lives. After the concussion I feel like I've had to start all over with her, like I had to delete everything I thought I knew about her and just get to know her from scratch. I didn't include her in the Shining Star post because I've had to change my expectations of her so much this year, I honestly don't know what I'm proud of her for. I'm currently happy with her, but it's been a roller coaster where she is concerned. I originally wanted her to be the backup endurance horse. At one point I thought she just might be my potential 100-miler horse...until her arthritis diagnosis. So I thought maybe we could do LDs with her...and then she started falling at Kathy's shortly after the move. And then she caused my concussion, and for a long time I was up in the air about whether I'd have to put her down, retire her or sell her, and whether I wanted to keep her even if she was normal neurologically. We weren't able to find anything physically wrong with her and she's been doing well so far which bodes well for her future with us, but I still work around her with the same kind of emotional detachment I use for working with other people's horses.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Charles's. He is the best husband and partner, and is always game to participate in any and all adventures I come up with. Even the one that includes a second horse.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Gracie's when she knocked me over in the field. It literally made me appalled and depressed, though it's not her fault.

14. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate at this time last year?
Lola. Though "hate" is a pretty strong term for it. I just dislike her. I'm still confused about what happened there. She was my first friend in Maryland and I heavily advertised her blog on mine when she complained that she didn't have followers. We commiserated over our problem horses back at the first MD barn. However, when I started making big progress with Lily's training at the second barn we boarded at together, instead of celebrating with me, she stopped talking to me. She wins the award for simultaneously creating both blog and barn drama in one fell swoop this year when she tried to get both Liz and I in trouble with my BO by using our blogs as a weapon. Thankfully the issue had already been discussed with the BO prior to the writing of the blog posts, and we had written nothing that we wouldn't want the BO to read. What really got to me about the whole thing was the intent: the woman had previously called herself my friend. Instead of bringing her supposed concerns directly to me, she just went straight to the BO to discuss an issue that had nothing to do with Lola herself. I had to laugh when afterwards Lola defriended me on Facebook. I really don't understand people.


15. Where did most of your money go?
Rent and Charles's student loans. The amounts are just about equal at this moment.

Both our "daughter" and our turnkey.

16. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Riding at the Old Dominion endurance ride.

17. What song will always remind you of 2014?
Timber

Shut up. ;) So what if the song talks about getting so drunk you don't remember anything. Setting the lyrics aside, I actually really like this song for the following reasons:
a) it's Pitbull and Ke$ha (I have my reasons: Ke$ha's song Tik Tok got me through many an overnight back when I first started in vet med and Pitbull was so overplayed in South FL that his voice still reminds me of the good times living down there)
b) it's the perfect combination of country and dance music
c) Pitbull's setting in the video (it's Major Big Cay in Exuma, the Bahamas. Also known as Pig Island. If you watch the video, you'll see why)
d) it was played so much on the radio in early 2014 that it will forever make me think of galloping Lily across snow-covered fields. It was usually playing in my head during those moments.

And Rude:

I love this song. I love the reggae rhythm and how both soothing and uplifting it is. It was my favorite song of this summer and it played so many times on my Pandora while doing speedwork with Lily on the barn's fields that it will always remind me of cantering her around the brilliant green grass under the blazing sun.

So basically where Timber left off, Rude picked up on the radio. My two songs of 2014. :)

18. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) Happier or sadder? Sadder

b) Thinner or fatter? Fatter. Holiday food + not being able to work out or ride.

c) Richer or poorer? Poorer

19. What do you wish you'd done more of? 

Trail running. I wanted to run a couple of trail races. I would have liked for us to have travelled more, even if just locally, and just been able to have more fun together, Charles and I. We have several things on the bucket list for this area still: to visit the Sugarloaf Mountain vineyards, go walking through more of the museums in DC (I've only been to the MOMA and the Museum of Natural History), to go to any of the local farms where you can pick your own fruits and veggies and actually pick our own fruit, to spend a night on the town in DC with friends (any volunteers??), and so many more. We love this area, the entire DC/MD/VA area, and when you add in all the stuff I still want to do involving horses, we really could just live here for the rest of our lives and still always have something new to do. Unlike when we lived in South FL, you can actually go out and have a good time without having to spend a ton of money.

20. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Worry. Worry about health both Charles's and mine, worry about money, worry about the horses, worry about my job, worry about the cats. There's been a lot of worry this year.

I was told this sweet girl whom I adore might have cancer. Thankfully she proved the doctors wrong. 

21. How will you be spending Christmas?

I spent it working in the veterinary ER and didn't get to see Charles. Lots of sick animals in the morning on that day, way too many dogs that ate chocolate which, having owned multiple dogs for the first 25 years of my life where we baked every single Christmas, I still find it kind of surprising when people are unable to keep the dogs out of the chocolate baking stuff.

I can understand with a large counter-surfing dog (though why not lock it out of the kitchen while you bake then?), but a little one? And granted, then there are dogs like this one.

We had two euthanasias amid the emergencies; I kept a very, very critical dog stable and helped her blood pressure go up by keeping my doctor informed of her condition every 15 minutes so her therapies could be tweaked constantly (stabilizing critical animals is an art); we had a couple of general practice-type "emergencies" where the owners brought their pets in simply because their regular vet was closed for the day. By early afternoon, the ER slowed down and we were able to enjoy the awesome Boston Market lunch that the hospital had had catered for us:

Charles's human ER was insane. He said it was so full when he walked in on Christmas Day that it was like all of the little kids had asked Santa for a hospital stay over the holidays. :/

So Charles and I finally opened presents today instead.

Charles had all of the presents under the tree and the tree lit up on the 23rd when I got home from work.  He was off that day so he made an amazing Christmas dinner so we could have it together in advance. (Both of us worked the 24th and the 25th.)
We bought a real wreath and hung it above the fake tree in the hopes that it would give the house that lovely pine tree smell. It didn't work, but it looks pretty all the same. If unusual. Haha...

22. Did you fall in love in 2014?

I celebrated 10 years of being in love with the man of my life, Charles.

23. Did your heart break in 2014?

No.

24. How many one night stands?

None. Durh.

25. What was your favorite TV program?

Orange is the New Black. I think we discovered it this year?

26. Where were you when 2014 began?

I was at work. I had just been switched from working weekend days to working the mid-shift during the week, and I was still feeling my way around my main coworker, who was known in the hospital for having a rather challenging personality. I was actually walking down the hallway to transfer one of our patients from the emergency room to our Intermediate Care Ward right when the clock hit midnight. The patient was a small fluffy dog but I don't remember what was wrong with it. So since I was in the hallway when New Year's started, I missed the wishes of "Happy New Year" both in the ER and in the Ward. I was already upset over not being able to be with Charles (they made him work ALL THREE HOLIDAYS at his job last year. RNs don't always get to choose their holidays off. I had chosen to work rather than spend it alone at home) and so I was even more upset that no one wished me a happy New Year. I walked back into the ER livid and when no one still said anything, snapped, "Well happy New Year to you guys too." They were surprised that I was angry and when I explained, everyone went out of their way to make it better and I ended up laughing that I'd been so silly about the whole thing.


27. Who were you with?
Jon, Moira and Joana.


28. Where will you be when 2014 ends?
We don't know yet, but at least we'll be together this time!


29. Who will you be with when 2015 starts?
With Charles!


30. What was the best book you read?
Falling for Eli by Nancy Shulins.

31. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Reggae Christmas music. Charles hates Christmas music and I love Christmas music. We both love reggae. One of his coworkers was playing this last week at work and Charles returned home very excited about it. So now I finally get to listen to as much Christmas music as I want around the holidays and Charles doesn't mind because it's basically reggae. We have reached an agreement. ;)

Maybe I'm crazy, but I think this is seriously awesome!

32. What did you want and get?
A second horse that was gaited.

A truck that could tow a horse trailer.

To do endurance.

To get to ride again with Charles.

33. What did you want and not get?
A bike maybe. As in, a mountain bike. But having the second horse made this kind of a moot point. I actually got every single thing that I wanted this year.


34. What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?
I worked. Everyone at work was lovely as always, stopping by the ER out of the blue to wish me a happy birthday and just making me feel loved, and my supervisor brought me cake from Wegman's. (If you live in Maryland, you might know about Wegman's bakery. If you don't, you should try it...ALL of their cakes are amazing!) And Charles was at home laid up after his knee injury that happened while riding Gracie (I sound like someone in an abusive relationship defending the spouse that beats her up, but this was a classic green rider + green horse moment. And don't think I haven't beat myself up about that one too, because I have. That one was my fault too on many levels for taking way too many things for granted when I okayed Charles's wishes of riding Gracie.) He was still having a hard time getting around, but he still got up and drove to the mall to get me Lilly Magilly's cupcakes as a surprise, which I honestly didn't feel like I deserved. I turned 35. I was off the following day and we were originally going to go for a long trail ride, but obviously Charles couldn't so I ended up riding Lily and longing Gracie which given the circumstances was good enough. I know we went out to dinner but I can't remember which restaurant it was: we tried out a few new ones in the area around that time.

34. What was your favorite film of this year?
We didn't go to the movie theater a single time this year. Of the movies I watched on video, my favorite was The Lone Ranger.


36. How many different states did you travel to in 2014?
Georgia, West Virginia, Virginia.

The road trip to Atlanta, GA with Liz was one of the highlights of the year for me.

37. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2014?
Endurance clothes (bright shirts and riding tights) or scrubs most of the time.


38. What kept you sane? 
Charles, Lily, Liz and Karen.

Karen, I hope one day we can have the real you in the photo with us!

39. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
None.

40. Whom did you miss? 
My mom. She was supposed to visit this fall but they had to do some repairs to their house. And Diana, who was supposed to visit in May and has yet to reschedule her trip.

With my mom on the Metro when she visited last summer.

With Diana when we visited FL last November.

41. How many concerts did you see in 2014?
None.

42. Who were the best new people you met?
Dom!

Endurance Trifecta hand sign!

And Gail!

Walking in with her and Nimo at the Fort Valley LD

43. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014.
I want to come up with something brilliant, but I don't have anything. I started my year-end review and became depressed when I realized how bright 2014 had started and how dark it became. I'm very lucky and grateful for what I have, don't get me wrong, but I hate the fact that sometimes no matter how positive you are, how good you are, and how you try to look on the bright side of things, bad things can still happen. I am reminded of this constantly at work too when really good people bring their really wonderful pets in for stuff that ends up causing their early or drawn-out demise. You will understand how all of this ties in together when I publish the official year-end review.

When the whole concussion thing happened, I was told to "be extra paranoid." You know what? I struggle with that every single day. I have a tendency to be negative. The blog has been a huge help in helping me see things in a positive light, because no one wants to read a bummer blog. I have some anxiety issues that I cope with silently. I can tell you all the million things that can go wrong with every single scenario you can think of. Me getting on my horse and riding out into the unknown alone day after day is (I refuse to say "was") a HUGE thing for me. I have a brother that succumbed to his paranoia and he hasn't set foot outside of his house in over a year. The comment about being extra paranoid really hit a nerve and was extremely upsetting. To be extra paranoid is to not live. It was hard to leave the apartment on the fourth day after my injury. When your head isn't right and you can't balance any little thing can throw you off. Can make you fall. Can make your injury worse. I was hyper-aware of this. Even driving down the street to go to work 3 miles away, I was terrified of being hit by another car because it would mean ending up in the hospital for sure with a worsened head injury. But I had to leave the apartment. I had to work. I only get 2 sick days a year and 4 days of vacation. I didn't get disability at the time. And I don't have a desk job: I work 12 hours a day on my feet, constantly squatting, kneeling, bending, lifting, walking, running. All things that made my head spin after the concussion. My veterinary ER is a busy one. It is very hard to run down a long hallway while carrying a dying 90 lb dog when you can't even walk straight. It is hard to do chest compressions when your head feels like it wants to fall off of your neck. But I left the house and I did it. My coworkers are amazing people and they helped me out as much as they could those god-awful first few weeks. My second day back on the job, a full week after I hit my head, I was holding the hind legs of a fractious 60 lb Shepherd who was lying on her back for an ultrasound. The dog started kicking hard with her hind legs, so hard I couldn't get her to stop, shaking me so much that I was nauseous for hours afterwards.

I can't even tell you how hard it was to go to the barn. Just driving there and walking around and getting the horses and putting the longing gear on them and just working them was a huge mental ordeal. There's a reason why I was taking Charles with me even though we weren't riding. The physical and mental aspect of doing anything was exhausting, and the exhaustion led to only more dizziness for a really, really long time. It was like I could never escape the effects of the injury no matter what I did during the day: Every waking hour, I was constantly reminded of all of the levels of my own stupidity, from buying the horse that caused the injury, to deciding to remove her sheet while she was trying to get away from me, to choosing to stand in the way instead of closing the pasture gate. If only if only if only. Can you say mental hole?

It's been an awfully long and rather terrifying struggle to get better from my brain injury, both mentally and physically, and I'm still not completely over the hump. It's been over 6 weeks since the accident.

So maybe that's it. That's what 2014 taught me, which is a reinforcement of what I learned in 2013: I refuse to live my life in fear. Fuck the fear. 


44. What are your plans for 2015?
To survive it. To still have in my life Charles, the cats, Lily, our vehicles, an apartment, our health and our jobs by the end of it. Charles and I have been dreading 2015 for the last 3 years. It marks the start of a new era for us, and how we make things work in 2015 will set the trend for the next 17 years of our lives.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, but a lot of things have to fall into place before then.

WW: Feeling Better

Thank you everyone for the shared experiences, the advice and the words of encouragement! Still not able to get in the saddle, but the day is getting closer: am well enough to start groundwork again!

A Lot

And also kind of nothing, I guess, because we're still in sort of the same holding pattern.

Dr. H came out again yesterday Friday to do part II of Gracie's neuro exam, since I was feeling well enough to be able to longe her.

I had her waiting with her surcingle, longing bridle with snaffle bit, and a halter on over the bridle, when Dr. H pulled up to the barn. She had me work her at the trot and canter in both directions with her head free and Gracie obliged with some really nice work. I haven't longed her in weeks and she was being snappy with the voice commands, arching her neck and working in a controlled manner. I told Dr. H that Gracie was showing off for her.

 Kathy has said that the mare has been almost timid in her manner with people ever since she trampled me, like she knows. Kathy admitted she was probably wanting to read this into her, but I can't deny it. Again, I don't know the thought processes of these animals but there are some individuals that really do seem to dwell on things. Gracie has been almost shy around me, tentative. I'm not giving her the benefit of the doubt though. I have worked around stallions and for the indefinite future, I will behave around her as if she was as unpredictable as a stallion. Don't get me wrong: the mare has improved TREMENDOUSLY in her ground manners with people even before the incident, especially now that she is in a setting where EVERYONE demands respect: that consistency has been one of the best things that could happen to her. But I'll never trust her 100% again. I probably shouldn't have to begin with, but I think all of us think, "It's my horse. She'll never do anything to hurt me." Wrong. It's not that they'll do anything to deliberately hurt us; most of them won't. But they are still 1,000+ lb prey animals and accidents happen.

Anywho. The exam.

So Gracie trotted, cantered and walked on command with her head free, then we placed the side reins as low on the surcingle as possible but on a looser setting to encourage the mare to stretch down. She didn't really stretch down; she continued working the way she normally does but didn't place a foot wrong. So we then played with tightening one side rein at  time and working her in both directions, so she got to trot overbent to the inside and counterbent to the outside of the circle. Gracie was uncomfortable with being counterbent but not in a neurological way, just in an "I'm not really used to this" sort of way. But she obeyed my request anyway. Dr. H also had me work her with both reins at the tightest setting so that she was hyperflexed and...nada. Perfectly normal movement in her hind end.

Unable to trigger a problem, we set her free in the paddock in front of the barn, the one where she has fallen the most while running at liberty. I will note that most of the grass in that paddock has died off with the freezes we've been having and it had snowed the day before, which was now melting...so the paddock was ESPECIALLY slippery and muddy on this day.

Gracie moved out sans side reins and I used the longe whip to request that she canter. She cantered about, head up and tail flagged in the same fashion she does when goofing off. I asked her to speed up as she ran around the perimeter of the paddock and she did, but being careful to slow down in the corners, something which she has never done before. We reversed direction and she did the same thing. Dr. H asked that she change directions a couple of times and...nothing. She gave a couple of tiny slips with the inside hind leg, but caught herself each time. Not even close to falling.

Well then.

Dr. H had me walk her away and toward her while I had Gracie move in serpentines with her head up in the air. She then wanted to see her do tight circles with her head in the air.

Nothing. Gracie's slight neurological abnormality is that she swings her hind legs out slightly more than the average horse, but this could also simply be just the way she moves.

We discussed further diagnostics and I asked for neck x-rays, since in part I of the exam Dr. H had found a thickening of Gracie's neck muscles even with C-2 + muscle tremors when pressed.

So this is what it looks like when taking equine neck radiographs in a clinical setting. The white and teal machine is the x-ray machine; the plate is located in that white square on the opposite side of the horse's neck.  Since my vet has a portable unit, she held the machine between her hands and I held the plate on the other side.
Photo from Woodside Equine Clinic. 

For this Gracie had to be sedated because you don't want them trying to move around while trying to get films and some horses get nervous with the machinery close to their heads. After a dose of Dormosedan IV, Gracie was hanging her head taking a nap so we proceeded with the rads. I held the plate on one side of her neck (wearing full protective lead gear fyi) while Dr. H stood on the opposite side and pointed the machine at her neck, even with where I was holding the plate. It took a few attempts, but we soon had some satisfactory films.

Tan-tan-taaaan...

NOTHING. Completely normal vertebrae. No bone spurs, no spondylosis, no major impingement of the spinal cord, no signs of arthritis at all. Or rather, nothing blatantly obvious on radiographs taken in the field, which are admittedly not the most precise/detailed, but it's what I can barely afford and it's better than blind speculation.

The next step will be EPM titers, but I won't do that until later. When I can afford it. Because veterinary and human hospital bills.

My vet and I had a long conversation about neuro horses vs clumsy horses. My vet doesn't feel quite comfortable assertively saying, "Yes, she's safe to ride," even despite everything we've ruled out, but she did admit that she has seen horses FAR clumsier than Gracie. Case in point: OTTBs just off the track. She recommended doing lots of longing over ground poles, grids and cavaletti at various gaits; using the back half of a Pessoa-type rigging system to get her to step up more under herself; lots of hill work, which is easy thanks to the hill in the back field; some flexibility exercises, like carrot stretches; and myofascial release, which she demonstrated on Gracie's neck.

Kind of like this. Photo from here. 

At her suggestion, I'll be tweaking her supplementation again, especially how much vitamin E she's getting. And we'll see. She'll either get worse with the agility conditioning or she'll get better and stronger. If she falls again during this type of work, I am to notify Dr. H. If she gets better, I can make the decision to ride her again.

Dr. H also had a very good point that I had not thought of: this is the most Gracie has moved in over a year. At the previous barn, the footing in the mare field was so muddy and rutted half the time that the horses didn't move around much. They just walked and grazed but they didn't run because they all knew it wasn't safe to do so. I actually had never really seen Gracie gallop around at liberty until the day I released her in another field for Kathy to take photos of her. (See photo in sidebar on the right.) In the winter they just stood at the round bales and ate round the clock; in spring and summer, she wore her grazing muzzle during the day, which resulting in her pouting in the run-in shed the entire time she was wearing it. She didn't walk around at all until the evening when the muzzle was removed. Dr. H said that it is possible that she was simply adjusting to being able to move around more, to being able to actually gallop, and having to learn to rate herself and be careful depending on the footing because she had not had the need to do so for over a year. This was a brilliant point that I had not thought of. On the other hand, she said, the stress of moving can trigger EPM symptoms in a horse that has it, even a mild case of it, so it still isn't a bad idea to test for it. We did pull the blood for the test right then and there and Dr. H will freeze the serum so we can send it out in a couple of weeks after the current vet bill is paid off.

I feel a little bit better about this horse, though there is a part of me that goes, "What if she has something that would show up on a myelogram?" That is the proper way of diagnosing neuro issues: contrast dye is injected into the spinal canal, which makes it light up on x-ray, allowing you to clearly see any narrowing or impingement.

Myelogram of a horse's cervical vertebrae. The arrow is pointing at an impingement of the spinal canal. This horse was diagnosed with Wobbler's Syndrome. Photo from here.

There is the problem of money and there is also the thing that the mare is not neurological enough to warrant the big diagnostics anyway. I keep having to think about Rhythm again, who refused to build up muscle in his hind end, who didn't track up even after 8 months of dressage work, who felt extremely unbalanced around circles and corners. Gracie doesn't feel like him at all, and I can't deny that despite all of this, she has improved tremendously in her way of moving: she didn't use to track up at all when trotting on the longe when I first started working with her 7 months ago. She overtracks now, and that's what my vet got to see when I worked her for her. This has been a consistent improvement, too.

In conclusion: when it comes down to it, she only has the slightest offness that could be nothing at all


For now though, the neurological person is not working with the possibly neurological horse.

I haven't read a blog post yet where someone talks about what it feels like to have a concussion so I'm going to talk about it. It's been interesting in the sense that I had never experienced anything like this before and some people have said that the way mine has manifested is unusual. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that I hit the back right side of my head and not dead center in the back or the front, but the main symptom has been vertigo and resulting motion sickness. (I don't often go internet sleuthing for more info on stuff that is wrong with me if I already saw a doctor because I'll just end up finding stuff to worry about more.)

For the first week, I felt like I was smashed drunk all the time. This would be great if this was a sensation I enjoyed, but I really, really hate it. I have been drunk all of one time in my life and that was enough. So this was kind of a cruel punishment. It would be worse in the morning when I woke up because I'd invariably forget and sit up too quickly in bed and the world would spin crazily around me. The feeling would improve around mid-morning then linger. Real improvements would be felt at the end of the day, only to start all over again the next morning. The difference would be that the severity of symptoms would be slightly decreased with each passing day or they would plateau earlier in the day than the day prior. It has been a very slow progress. If I get very tired, I will feel more dizzy. If I rest it gets better, which is good at least.

Walking outdoors has been...interesting. Forward movement in the beginning made it feel like I was moving forward very slowly but the entire world was coming at me way too fast, and I'd have to think very hard about keeping my balance. I'm far better now while walking, but I still get this sensation if I try to run faster than a slow jog. At a jog it just feels like the world is shaking in counterpoint to my movement, which is more tolerable. And nope, I'm not going out for jogs: I'll just jog a few steps once a day to see how my brain is feeling, to note the improvements.

I will tell you that if you are concussed and you have Transition lenses on your glasses, you may want to go to a non-Transition lens pair or contacts in the meantime because the darkness of your lenses in bright sunlight against the brightness around your glasses can make your symptoms worse. You'd get the same effect if you have small sunglasses. If the sun bothers you, go with larger sunglasses so you have less glittery brightness shining through around them.

I was told that bright light itself and moving lights at night would be confusing or make me feel ill, but neither has been the case. If I'm not wearing the Transitions I'm fine in the sun, and bright lights at night whether moving, flashing or at a standstill, have not been a problem whatsoever.

In the beginning, I couldn't even avert my eyes sideways, down or up: this would make me nauseous. Two days in, I could look down while walking and to the left and the right, especially if I was sitting down, but I could not tilt my head sideways to the right nor look straight up. Most things were more comfortable to the left than to the right, so for a while there I was joking that I was like a poorly trained horse: I was preferring everything on the left! I couldn't lie down on my right side either: my world spun if I did and would not stop. It was so incredibly awful that if I made the mistake of turning over while sleeping, the instant rapid dizziness would wake me up and force me back onto my left side. After 10 days, I can finally lie on my right side again with minimal dizziness, and tilting my head back to look up is not a problem anymore. However, bending down to tie my shoes is still somewhat challenging: I do get moderately dizzy and it's better if I can sit down to do it or lean against a wall.

I have had a few minor sort of tension headaches that start at the back of my skull, below where the injury is, but they have been mild enough to be quite tolerable, enough to where I haven't felt the need to take NSAIDs until Charles asks me how I feel, I'll mention it, and he'll pass me the ibuprofen.

Head trauma does mess up your brain even if you didn't have a brain bleed or a skull fracture. Your brain still gets banged around. I normally have this laser focus for getting things done throughout the day and one of the things that allows me to do my job well is my ability to multi-task. I can think about many things at once and do many things at once and do them all well and in a timely manner. In my normal state, every once in a while I will stutter when thinking because my brain is going so fast that my mouth can't keep up with it.

Well, not so much at the moment. I'll be thinking about something and I will have a second where I can't actually say it out loud. I draw a blank. It's not because I'm thinking too fast; now it's more like there's this tiny lag in the connection between my brain and my mouth. I'll also have disjointed thoughts, where for example I think about going home and the house that comes to mind is the townhouse in Coconut Creek where we lived last while in FL. And then I think, "Wait, we don't live there anymore. Wait...where DO we live?" And there will be this instant where I can't visualize our current apartment. And there have been a lot more moments where I walk into a room and forget what I was going to do and I just can't remember what it was. I'll walk out of the room and remember 10 minutes later, instead of remembering while still standing in the room like I normally would. And I get easily distracted. I went with Charles to Trader Joe's five days after my accident so we could do grocery shopping for Thanksgiving together.

It took AN HOUR. And not because I love Trader Joe's, which I do. No, because of this:

Normally my shopping pattern is like the man's, because I honestly hate shopping, even if it's Trader Joe's. On this one day at Trader Joe's however, my shopping pattern was like the woman's. And it was unendingly frustrating: I'd tell Charles to get one thing while I got another, and then I would go down the correct aisle to get what I wanted...and then I'd get sidetracked by something else that caught my eye and think of another thing that maybe we could use, then I'd end up on a different aisle entirely...and then I'd remember what I wanted in the first aisle that I never got. So I'd leave the new thing I'd thought of and backtrack, get the first thing, then remember there was another thing I'd just thought of...repeat. I was simply unable to just focus. By the end, I was mentally exhausted. It was funny on one level, but on another it freaked me out because I am not like that. Charles was like, "Welcome to my world!" My response, "I don't know how people with ADD function!"

My short term memory is also a little off: I'll forget something I've already said and repeat myself, or will mix up the details of something someone texted me, or something I read in an e-mail. Little things that are normal for some people and things that tend to happen more as we get older, but it's not normal for me. This and the dizziness have been my #1 complaints.

These instances are slowly becoming more infrequent, thankfully, and yes: this is all completely normal for this type of head injury. As long as there is an improvement, it's all good. And I think that as long as I can recognize what is going on, recognize that this is not normal and still remember what my normal felt like and know that it's all coming back slowly...well, I think that's a good thing. It was nice to be able to walk into the grocery store today and get what I needed and get back out, though I still did forget two things despite having the list in my hand. Which upset me until I remembered that this is something that is more my normal.

So I am better but the thought of waiting for weeks to be 100% normal again is kind of daunting. I know I'm very lucky and I'm happy to be alive and getting better, but at the same time I'm an impatient patient, and when you have something wrong with you that affects all of your life so completely in a way that you just can't forget for a second what happened, it doesn't take long for you to feel like you've been trying to heal for forever. And you become afraid of something like this happening to you again, of being placed in this position of eternal waiting to heal again. I'm impatient to get better because I have all of these little fears creeping up on me: the fear of riding, the fear of getting injured again while working with a horse on the ground, the fear of being trampled, the fear of having so much fear that it will take over. I officially have a fear of running horses at the moment, which I hope will fade with time once I don't feel so vulnerable anymore. I stood flat against the fence the other day when letting the mares out into the front field, with this irrational fear that one of them would come tearing up to me and slam against me, even though I was nowhere near where they were headed and more than safely out of the way a good acre away. It's the kind of stuff you'll think when you don't understand an animal's behavior, "But what if they do this?" and it felt so out of character to have it pop up in my brain in response to horses of all things.  On a separate occasion, when I was leading Gracie from the field for her second recheck, I got this overwhelming sense of panic because I could not get her to lead next to me; she kept walking behind me. At a very reasonable distance, over 6' away, but I could not handle having her walking behind me. I ended up walking backwards across the field while leading her so I could keep my eyes on her at all times.

For the first time in my life, I can understand the irrational fear of horses that my grandmother had, so irrational that she would burst into tears at the sound of galloping hooves. I never understood it.

I can tell you now that I know exactly what that feels like. And I can tell you that I can't wait for things to be normal again so I can think again like a rational horse person. A more cautious one, but a rational one.

If I look at it from another angle, I can totally understand the irrational behavior that some horses present when they hurt somewhere in their bodies or are not quite right. The horses that give big spooks or act out over things that didn't use to bother them, because they feel vulnerable and are more afraid of being eaten. Like Rhythm. I understood it before, but I can actually see things from that perspective now.

Gracie will be worked with to try to make her better and Lily will be ridden again, but neither will happen until I'm feeling as close to 100% better as possible. Lily is sound after her barbed wire wounds have healed. She finished her antibiotics and has been enjoying her time being a horse in the field.

This too shall pass.