Not so great.

Gogo isn't really doing all that well right now. She's still getting around relatively well, and she is definitely losing weight, thank god... but she's been dead hopping lame for two months now with no improvement.

True, she did have one day where she was startlingly improved. The next day, however, she did not get Arnica or Banamine... and was absolutely dead lame the following day. I dosed her again with both Banamine and Arnica (although the two together is not really recommended for the homeopathy to actually work well.... I just couldn't not try to help her out, seeing how lame she was), and the following day she was very vaguely improved. Again though, who is to say what did it, the Arnica or the Banamine? She had it a full 12 hours beforehand (a 500lb dose) so I don't really know. The next step would be to give the Arnica without the Banamine... who knows though, at this point.

My biggest nagging concern at this point is the left hind. The ugly swelling on it will not. Go. Away. It has been there for almost two weeks now, and it is the same - ugly, lumpy, and with a distinct hot spot. The proximity it has to the old injury site is disturbingly close. It's nearly impossible to see if there is a lameness on this leg seeing as she is so crippled on the other leg, but if we blocked the right left we might see something show up on the left. I trotted her out on Friday and couldn't be sure, but thought that both hinds looked equally short going to the right. Going to the left, she looks the same as always.... dead hopping lame on the right.

I got my latest vet bill in finally (my vet's office takes forever to get the bills out!) and the write up was incredibly depressing, with words like "severe," "best to be a broodmare," "chronic and recurrent," and "painful."

It just feels like everything is slowly beginning to unravel. I predicted a systematic continual breakdown of the RH and then the LH... this might actually be happening. We won't know what is happening to the LH unless we run an ultrasound machine over it, but even then I can feel myself stalling. I don't want to face the music. I don't want this to be the end.

And maybe it isn't the end, who knows? But it just feels like I might finally be ready and prepared for it if this is what it comes down to.



Fall is beautiful in Texas now that it is finally here. The weather is gorgeous (low 80's with no clouds and a light breeze), and we've actually had one or two rainsqualls. Things are starting to turn green again, and flowers are popping up everywhere. The seasons are extremely hard for me to get used to, considering that I've always been a northern girl with a very set in stone idea of winter-spring-summer-fall, but I think I understand everything a little better now that I am here. Fall is a bit like spring here if you think about it - everyone stayed inside miserable and seasonally depressed all summer due to the extreme heat and drought, and fall is when they are starting to emerge and see green things and flowers and are able to enjoy the weather again. At least, that is my own direct experience... I imagine others feel much the same way about it.

Life, other than the horrible looming specter of uncertainty with Gogo, is good.

The Magic Bullet...... Maybe?

This story comes with a prelude. Let me take you back to the days of Gogo's youth (not that she's old, but you know... when she was younger!), back to the first few trial rides I had on her when I was considering purchasing her. When I first found Gogo, she had just been started and was not great with things like steering and stopping. She was not exactly a pleasure to ride at the time. At the end of her second ride, her owner suggested I take her for a hack outside the arena to cool her down. I said sure, why not? What I didn't know was that she hadn't really been out of an arena before... and hadn't ever been by herself... and did I mention she had no idea who I was and couldn't really stop or steer? And that the area outside of the arena was a cornfield full of tall July corn and there was a stiff wind and four-wheelers screaming through paths in the cornfield? Maybe I shoulda thought that one through before I attempted it.... but Gogo was brilliant. Rattling corn, being alone, roaring four-wheelers, stranger on her back.... and she just sighed and walked along on the buckle, marching along in her confident way that I have always admired. That little hack sold her for me. I knew she was a real gem when we trailered her over to the vet's office for her prepurchase, and walked her underneath a giant rolling garage door and into a very vet-smelling lab area, complete with whirring machines and bizarre footing, and she never even batted an eye. She just looked around with a calm curiosity, as if this were a most interesting everyday occurrence. Despite her mare moments, she has ALWAYS had this amazing confidence and intelligence, and it has never ceased to impress or amaze me. She is absolutely one of a kind.

That prelude out of the way, I can now continue on with the real purpose of this entry! You'll see how it interconnects in a minute.

As per some reader suggestions, I switched up my homeopathy and decided to take a slightly different approach. On Monday, I started her on Arnica and Ruta together, and cut out the Rhus tox and the Calc fluor for now. I also had an Arnica topical rub (that has Ruta in it, interestingly enough) that I had picked up, and after her tubba I rubbed both hinds with it. She still has some residual fill on the inside of the left hind, but it has greatly diminished and is still just a superficial bonk as far as we can tell. (Thank sweet baby Jesus in Heaven for that.) On Tuesday, I woke up super early - much to Future Hubs' dismay, I think - and made it to the barn before work so I could load Gogo up and take her over to work. That's right, somebody got to go swimming yesterday!!

The AquaTread is the epitome of Really Sweet Rehab Equipment. I've blogged about our old treadmill before, and I will have to do a full post on the AquaTread as well. Our AquaTread is housed inside a barn built specifically for and around the treadmill, complete with four wall stalls facing the treadmill. Horses that are new to the AT usually come in the barn bug-eyed and snorting - the entire barn is full of LOUD gurgles, whirrings, and hummings from the jets and filters (of which there are many). Getting them into the chute and down the corridor into the water can sometimes be a bit hairy the first few times. We are always slow - if they have a bad experience, they will assuredly NOT get in next time - but we do use a butt rope or a waving whip if we have to. Horses get onto the ramp and snort, tremble, paw, poop, and generally fuss until they get into the water, either by sliding, leaping, or tip-toeing in (the last being the ONLY kind we want to encourage!). Once they figure out that they don't have to swim AND that they have to walk on the moving underwater treadmill at the bottom of the ramp, they figure things out. They are in water that is about chest-deep and they can either do a slow walk, a power walk, a slow jog, a normal trot, or a fast/extended trot depending on their size and gait. After a time or two, they figure it out, and all our horses that regularly swim all walk in, work out, and walk out off of the exit ramp without problem. It ALWAYS takes a bit of time to get a new horse in. ALWAYS. Let me repeat that one more time: ALWAYS.

When Gogo arrived on the farm, I put her up in a pen so she could hang out, and tossed her a bit of the hay I had brought for her. My boss came out shortly after I had fed everyone, and we took a peek at her. I told her about Gogo's extremely extreme lameness on the right hind, and then jogged Gogo out for her to see, first on a straight line and then on circles. When I was done, I brought her back over to my boss to see what she had to say about it.

"Well, I hate to say this," she said, shaking her head, "but... your mare's not really lame."

..................... wait. What?

I of course didn't believe her - no way, she's dead hopping lame, are you sure? She offered to jog her out for me so I could see for myself, and sure the heck enough, she was a WORLD better. I could still see it on the right hind just because I know this mare so well and know what she looks like fully sound, but I've not seen her looking that good in a very long time. She was a different horse.

I stared at her in disbelief. What had changed? And then it hit me - I had given her Arnica with her Ruta for the first time the day before. D'OH. Something actually worked. This is NOT to say it CURED something - but it took away quite a lot of her pain. The only other possibility (aside from some sort of majikal miracle) was that I had given her a 500lb dose of Banamine 15 hours before the jog out... but a low dose Banamine can hardly be attributed to a pain reduction of this significance when it was given that many hours before, especially when she was also getting doses of Banamine last week, and they did nothing to relieve her of her pain in the way that the Arnica seems to have. To say that I am shocked in the best kind of way is a gross underestimate. The other interesting thing about the Arnica topical rub? I have an AMAZINGLY HUGE disgusting black/blue/green/red multicolored bruise and a massive hematoma on my upper arm from where I got smooshed into a metal panel by a hungry horse at feed time last week, and the colors were just beginning to intensify. I was waiting until it got to the brightest array of colors before I took a picture of it to show everyone... it was one of those kinds of bruises that you want to remember forever. After applying the rub to Gogo's legs, I half-heatedly wiped the hand that I used to apply the rub with over my bruise. The next day, there was a dramatic reduction of the bruise, both in swelling and in color (and in pain). Aw man... I really wanted a picture of it and now it is almost gone!

When it came time for Gogo's AT experience, we loaded her up in the barn with two other experienced horses so that she could watch them get into the AT and work out. This works wonders for new horses - they see how other horses get in, how they work out, and how they get out, and they are able to see that the horses come out intact and in one piece and were not consumed by Nessie/alligators/piranhas/whatever else might be in a scary gurling body of water. Gogo walked into the pool barn without so much as even bothering to give the AT a glance, which I've never seen a new horse not do before. She watched the first horse go in with a look of semi-confusion and interest on her face, leaning forward on the crossties with a soft eye but an arched neck and pricked ears. The second horse to go in didn't even elicit a passing glance from her. When it was her time to go in, my boss came over to help in case we needed two people to get her in, but I wasn't worried.

Sure enough, Gogo walked up to the bubbling, gurgling water (which was dim enough so she couldn't see the bottom or what she was getting herself into), went "oh well that's interesting," and literally just walked herself right in. She carefully tip-toed down the ramp, playing with the water on the way in, and when she reached the treadmill, she walked on it like she had been doing it all her life. She didn't even take an uncertain step. "Wow," was all my boss could say for a moment. Apparently, in all her years of rehab work and owning a rehab facility where countless hundreds of horses have passed through, she has only seen 4 other horses walk in like that their first time. But I wasn't surprised. She is the same brilliant little mare that she was when she was 5. I knew she'd go in easy.



I will have to get more and better pictures next time, as well as video. Go mare!

We stuck to a regular walk workout for 15 minutes. From above, we could see how out of alignment her spine is - she could really stand for a chiropractic adjustment. I haven't had one done on her since I moved to Texas. When we were in Connecticut, Gogo was getting adjusted every three months, and I was getting adjusted every 3 days! I had stopped her chiro because the amazing Dr. A told me not to bother for the time being - just standing around crookedly would throw her right back out of alignment anyway, so I haven't bothered to pursue it until now. I think we are both suffering a bit from lack of chiropractor disease right now though. Or at least I know I am... my back and right hip are falling apart! I'm actually having another really bad flare-up of whatever was bothering me last year, but this time it is in my left hip (the one with the original kick injury 6 years ago), and it feels like there is some sort of ligament involvement - whenever I walk, there is a painful moment when the limb is being brought forward where it feels like there is a stabilizing ligament in the front of my hip socket that is on fire. I have no idea what it is, bur I've been limping around for three days now... dangit.

The best part? When Gogo got out of the pool, her legs were icy cold and TIGHT. Super tight! I've not seen them look that good since last year! Even her windpuffs were gone. ALL the swelling was completely gone. EVERYTHING. It did come back, of course, she certainly wasn't magically cured - but it was obviously incredibly helpful for the time that she was in there.

Maybe we found the magic bullet. Between weight loss, the homeopathy, and the AquaTread (within reason... I get an employee discount of course but it still gets expensive quick!), I might be able to bring her back to reasonable comfort. I am also considering some supplements. I've had her on SmartTendon before but had taken her off, so I might do that again or either look into an herbal supplement - anyone have suggestions?

Fingers crossed!

Leg Transplant

That's what I've decided that I want for Christmas. I want bilateral leg transplants for Gogo's hind end.

Seriously though, I showed up at the barn yesterday after leaving Gogo's wraps off the night before, and what did I find? This:


The Ugly Stepsisters

Mare, COME ON. WHY. What's up with the mystery swelling on the left hind? Does that HAVE to be there? Can't we, you know, banish it to Siberia or something? Or somewhere else equally as unpleasant so it can't ever come back and haunt your hind legs ever again?

She still doesn't appear to be lame on it, but again, it's hard to say for sure what is going on. She is SO absolutely dead hobbling lame on the right hind that there is no way to tell what is going on with the left - if there is pain there, it is obviously less than what is on the right and she is using it as she must in order to stay mobile. She did take some terrible steps on it while turning on a tight circle, but only once. It was enough to be completely alarming. Hopefully it's just a whack on the leg or a bandage bow and not something serious and structural. At this point, who knows.

Apparently, however, she's been a complete nuisance and a hellion in her new little tiny turnout. There is enough length to the corridor for her to engage in her new favorite game: run to one end, spin and run back to the other end. The run and spin game is amusing to everyone but me. Those who witness her little gallop fits think that she must not be feeling too bad if she has the gall to be galloping around. As for me, I think that whether or not she thinks she can run around right now, her legs are going to explode if she continues to do so.
She has also decided that her double-new favorite game is to climb into the giant water trough with both front feet and splash all the water out. She absolutely LOVED to do this as a baby - I never got photographic evidence of it aside from the moment right before she climbed in once - but this one is a metal trough and her only source of water in this pen so it was unappreciated all around. They removed the tub and she now has 3 buckets instead of a trough. I take this to mean that she must be either a) really bored or b) feeling good and playful enough to have a little fun in there. She actually has honestly visibly lost a few pounds - the giant lumps of fat over her tailhead are melting back into her butt! Baby steps.... baby steps..... baby steps.




She looks a smidgeon less fat.... what do you think? She's still about 150-200lbs overweight.... we have a long way to go!


Now if only the LH would stop looking so ugly and just go away! She is the queen of mystery non-lameness-inducing swellings after all, as those of you who have followed for a long time might remember. She does it all the time - random hot lumps and bumps on her legs that just go away after a few days and never make her lame. Here's hoping that this is just another one of those. Either way, it was big enough to warrant me digging around in my trailer and breaking out the good ol TUBBA again!


MOM WHY YOU DO THIS!

Here's hoping it vanishes magically in the next few days. Next week, I'll try some revised homeopathy and continued coldhosing/icing. I wish she'd stop moving around so much though. I mean, it's great in one sense because she will actually lose weight (a critical key in this last-ditch attempt to get her comfortable), but on the other hand, she's going to hurt herself if she runs around like an idiot. Aside from stalling her, however, there's just not anything else I can do. There is no smaller turnout to put her in, unless we move. And I'll be hard pressed to find one smaller than this one either way.



In other news, if you're going to Greenwood drop me a line! I'll be there braiding and hopefully spectating inbetween if I have time! Also if you need braiding, I do a mean set of buttons, and I'll cut you a deal ;)




PS: I should never go horse window shopping because I find critters like this who call out to me:



I LOVE a tight and compact build like that! Holsteiner/TB and reasonably priced to boot (under $10k). 9 years old, sound and uphill with a big jump, living in the rocky wilds of Montana and is barefoot with nary a bad step out on the trail... dream come true. As if I have $10k sitting around anywhere..... yeah right!

In Which Gogo Dissaproves of her Jenny Craig

Two days ago, Gogo was given a rather nasty shock. There she was, hanging around in her field and bullying her companions for their food, when suddenly her mom (AKA your truly) showed up at the gate. "Mooooom!" she yelled as she saw me. "Moooom I hope you brought some foooood!" Not only did I not bring her any food (much to her disgust and dismay), but after coldhosing both hinds and shoving some unpleasant homeopathic remedies into her mouth, she was horrified to find that she was being wrapped and dumped unceremoniously (in her eyes, anyway) into a small, narrow turnout inbetween fields. This turnout had NO food in it, and no friends to bully either. Gogo was distraught. "Moooom...... Mom you forgot the fooood again.... Mooooom?"
Two very measly flakes of hay later, Gogo was severely miffed. She decided the best course of action was to punish me for my misdeeds. The best way she could think of to do this was to gallop the length of her tiny new paddock repeatedly, doing rollbacks that would make a reiner proud at either end, and galloping off in the other direction again. (This is the report I was given later.... great. Apparently she did it for some time too.)

When I arrived yesterday afternoon, both her wraps were around her ankles. She looked at me with nonchalance, as if to say, "Well, you deserved it. You MADE me do it." I removed the wraps to find that the right hind actually looked vaguely better than it had the day before. The left hind, on the other hand, was quite puffy and blisteringly hot in the area of her old injury. You know, the one from 2009. Oh, that's just great.

If you look at the left hind, you'll notice the puffiness around her fetlock as well at the neon pink sock, which indicates inflammation:



I wrapped her again last night with tighter, thinner, better fitting wraps in the hope that this was merely a bandage bow and that it would go away in a few days - and that she wouldn't pull them down again. She does not appear to be lame at all on the LH but admittedly it is hard to compare when you are looking at the hobbling lameness on the RH - I am bollocks at seeing bilateral lameness, for all I can see hind end lamenesses. Today of course she had left the right hind bandage up but the left hind was down around her ankle again. Today, the swelling and localized heat were quite a lot more dramatic and worse. Coldhosing didn't help either hind leg... I've been doing it every day regardless.

Again though, she doesn't appear to be lame on the LH. My hope is that this is just a bandage bow from yanking that wrap down twice. If the swelling and heat doesn't go away within the next few days though, I will have to have it looked at. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that because you all remember what my Red Light Means No list says about a new injury.


I've been trying a few homepathic remedies this week, and either I'm doing something wrong or they're just not doing anything. (Not that I thought they would.... I just figured it was cheap and worth a shot.) Every single person I've talked to had given me a different recommendation for dosage, all the way from giving one dose of one thing once only to giving four doses an hour followed by a dose every hour for a few following hours... I have no idea what proper protocol is. As it stands, I winged it and am doing a dose a day for a week. I've seen zero change but I'm not sure what I expected to happen anyway. If anything, she is worse. I'm trying Rhus tox, Ruta, and Calc fluor.... anyone know of the actual proper dosage one is supposed to give? Homeopathy fail!


Oh Gogo. I know I am starving you and giving you weird crap and it must not be a lot of fun but will you please just stop being a silly mare so you can stop teetering on death's doorstep?

The Master Plan

Because my head won't stop spinning over the what-ifs of Gogo's situation, I decided last night that I needed to sit my butt down and write out a concrete set of guidelines for 'proceed or do not proceed' procedures. So, you know, proceed with the procedure-reading!


Green Light Means Go:
If she improves and continues to have improvements.
If she continues to get around well in her field and be able to do all the horsey things she deserves to be able to do: having a herd of friends, living out, stuffing her face, etc.


Yep... that is basically it. So long as she is ok and living what I perceive to be a comfortable and happy life, then we'll keep going.
The do-not-proceed list is longer and more detailed:


Red Light Means No:
If her condition worsens dramatically.
If her condition worsens and does not improve over a week (or longer, depending on severity - but not longer than a month).
If she stops getting around easily in the field.
If she loses interest in basic everyday things she enjoys - food, attention, etc.
If another new injury occurs.
If she is unable to be out doing the things she deserves to be able to do: having a herd of friends, living out, stuffing her face, etc.


Simple, I think. I feel better having it written down. I guess the basic gameplan is this: Try, but don't expect. The reality of it all is that the chances are VERY high that nothing is going to work. But she's still here and she's still pasture sound and able to beat her companions to a pulp, so I might as well stop sitting around in despair and do what I can to try.



A Few Things to Try:
Icing/cold hosing.... maybe pick up a cheap human-version of Game Ready on Ebay if I can find one
Some very basic homeopathy
Herbs/supplements... possibly
Castor oil packs w/Back on Track wraps
AquaTread/E-Stim/PEMF... possibly... it gets expensive fast and I'm not going to waste money on this!
Jenny Craig for Fatties.... drylotting and strict dieting
Acupuncture/chiropractic

Most of this now is all throwing poo at the wall to see what sticks. I'm certainly not going to do ALL of those things, and as for the more expensive things... they are only getting done if I come into a random chunk of money that I don't have anything better to spend it on. A lot of these things might just be dumb ol' hoodoo and nonsense, but nothing else has worked so far, so why not change it up a bit?




It's all just grasping at straws a bit, and I'm not going to keep trying unless she is comfortable and getting around well. If she stops being comfortable and mobile, we're done. But while she's doing decently, I want to at least give it a try. The only thing I have left to lose is her.




Everything has been on fire for 4 months...



... but on Friday the skies changed and we ACTUALLY HAD RAIN!





AND we had an adventure in the rain, all thanks to JenJ.... more on that later ;)

Many Milestones.

This is the 500th post for the Eventing-A-Gogo blog.
We have over 250,000 hits as of this week, and 365 official followers.
And exactly two years ago today, Gogo blew her legs out on XC at the 2009 AECs.

The first two things are super exciting and awesome! The last thing, not so much.
I am teetering on the edge of try or do not try. One minute I am hopeful, and the next I despair. I don't really know what to do.

The video of the original slide and injury in 2009:



Oh, Gogo.

There is still no easy answer.

I've been a busy girl as of late. Between my trip to Austin, trimming horses, and starting a new job at an equine rehab facility (which is awesome.... pictured right is the Aqua Tread), I've not had a lot of time to get out and watch Gogo really move since her vet appointment. I've seen her walk around a bit (or maybe at this point the correct term would be waddle), but aside from that, I hadn't had a good chance to review her soundness and whether or not she had improved since her cortisone injection in the tendon sheath on the RH. Conveniently, her barn is only about 10 minutes away from the new job... how about that. I had no idea it was so close until I actually drove there after work yesterday.... one less thing to worry about.

Being away in Austin and refusing to think about the whole mess did me no favors in the end in terms of coping and coming to terms with possible and unthinkable things. I pushed the whole idea of finality out of my head during the trip and refused to think about it, even for a moment. In doing so, I allowed myself to create the delusion that life is continuing on as it always has, and that Gogo is really fine and that I must have been overreacting to her severe lameness. I can't imagine life without her, so that's exactly what I've been refusing to try to comprehend.

The original area of filling (the excess in the tendon sheath) has dramatically improved post-injection, just the same as it had last time. The area below it, however - the area of new damage - has not changed. It still looks as terrible as ever.

On the lunge, well... there is some improvement going right, but going left, she is as hip-hiking lame as ever.



Reality check. This did not magically improve while I was away blissfully ignoring matters as hand. This is still a serious problem.



Yet, she is still as cheerful as ever. I am struggling with the morality of the issue at hand - it isn't right to euth a horse who is still in great spirits and getting around okay, but it also isn't right to make a horse wait until they are on three legs and unable to get around before you make that decision for them. Given her current level of mobility and her happiness, it is absolutely NOT time to consider euthanasia yet. I am surrounded constantly by far lamer horses than her who are still alive and getting around okay as well. Still, just because we can keep them going doesn't necessarily mean we should keep them going.

Playing God is impossibly hard to do in these situations. You can eke a little life out of something that normally would have already died, or you can end a life by choice whenever you decide the time is right. They don't ask to die unless they are already dying. They, like all other living beings on the planet, are just trying to survive as best they can.



I've been told that it is to my detriment that I don't believe in organized religion or Men In The Sky or the healing power of prayer. I am every bit a right-brained thinker, but I also wholeheartedly believe in biology and science, and I know a tendon/ligament problem is just not going to magically heal itself to good-as-new. Right now, however, I wish I could buy into the idea of hoping for a small miracle. My hope always spikes and then deflates. I've never had lasting good luck in my life... I can't imagine it would bother to start now.

Vet Appointment and Some Bad News.

As you guys know, Gogo's lameness has continued to dramatically escalate over the past week or so. After seeing just how bad it was on Sunday, I had to step in and do something. We trailered out for an 11:00AM appointment yesterday with Dr. H, who is our regular vet and also 'the leg man' in this area - the authority on sports injury in the distal limb. I knew he'd give me a good dose of reality, if I needed it.

And I did. Remember about two weeks ago when I wrote this?:

"Gogo is, once again, pretty unsound. Not consistently, not horribly, but it's there. Going to the right on the lunge, she looks completely normal and fine... you wouldn't even know there was a problem unless you were truly looking for something, and hard. Going to the left, she has a consistent hitch in her right hind. I am grateful that whatever is going on still appears to be with the SDFT, and that this presentation of lameness has been positively associated with SDFT damage in the past, because this is a classic suspensory presentation. If she had a new suspensory injury on top of everything, I think I'd die. Thankfully, as far as I can tell it's just the same old thing, forever."

I was in denial. Remember all the recent swelling around the branches of her suspensory and underneath her fetlock? I thought it was related to the SDFT/annular ligament/tendon sheath. Denial.



We pulled her out of the trailer and Dr. H looked curiously at the fill below her fetlock. Watching her walk, I thought I could detect the beginnings of discomfort at the walk - which she's never had before. We watched her jog out. She was dead lame. We flexed the fetlock (with some difficulty, as the limb was so filled with fluid and swelling that it is becoming hard to bend). She hopped off, hardly able to even put the leg down. The leg continued to bother her even after the jog out once it had been flexed - she hard trouble turning and walking, and spent a lot of time resting it.

I've never seen her that lame before. Not even during her first injuries in 2009. She was easily a 4/5 lame.




When we ultrasounded, the old scar tissue and general mess in the SDFT and then tendon sheath was still there. Disorganized and ugly, yes, but still the same as they were. There was no new damage to those structures. I cringed, worried about what we were going to find as the real culprit for the acute lameness and swelling. And sure enough, there is was - where the suspensory makes an insertion on the long pastern bone under the fetlock, there was significant damage and degeneration.

A brand new injury, two years into this never ending rehab, and it's a severe one at that. Game over. There is no solution, therapy, rehab protocol, medicine, or anything short for a magic wand that can fix this. There is no cure at this point. The leg is experiencing systematic breakdown. It doesn't matter what we do, how much money we spend, or how much time we give it - there is no turning around after this.

She is never going to be rideable again. No, not even as a trail horse. (I asked.) Best case scenario is that the limb manages to stabilize itself through more scar tissue and thickening, and she manages to get around until something else breaks down. The vet said to breed her, but that "it will shorten her serviceable life." The suspensory will degenerate and sink like this in the healing process either way, regardless of what we do. I am NOT going to breed her as this would be irresponsible of me.

The vet's advice was this: "If you had a huge pile of money and this lame horse, at the end of a year you would have no money and this exact same lame horse." Even if I had a million dollars to pour into this horse, it would do me no good.


Best case scenario is that she manages to build up enough scar tissue to get around in a field for awhile and somehow not end up with another injury. Having watched her fall apart over the past two years - and having seen injury after injury take place even when just doing things like walking around in her field - it is nearly certain that she will reinjure again somewhere, or injure something new again, like she has just done. With all this damage to the right hind, how long until the left hind gives out? It had an injury too when this first happened, and it has areas of scar tissue as well. If the right hind continues to systematically fail, eventually the left hind will too.



It is my personal belief that it is cruel to make a horse limp around in a field until her legs give out. I don't believe that it is right or fair to make this mare stumble painfully around in a field for the next however many years (if she even makes it that long before complete breakdown) until I decide to let her go. I don't believe that that is quality of life. It is better to let one go while they are still somewhat mobile and happy instead of waiting until they are suffering and crippled when you know that that is the direction they are heading in. If there was hope for her comfort and happiness, I'd let her be a pasture puff. Maybe without this new injury, there would have been. But now the hope is so slim that it's not fair to make her hang around in limbo to wait and see if there's a chance for her comfort. It isn't right and it isn't ethical. It's cruel and I won't do that to her.


I haven't made a final decision yet as to what I am going to do. Right now, I don't need to hear stories about what other people would do if Gogo were their horse, or what their experiences were in the past with their own horses, or to not give up hope. None of those things will help me right now. Ultimately, this is my decision. I am the one who has spent every possible waking moment with this mare for the past five years, and I am the one who has watched the ups and downs of her life in person. I am the one who had made all the choices in her life, for better or for worse. It is now my responsibility and duty to make the best choice for her. I owe her so much, and she deserves her dignity. She has given very last inch of her heart for me, and I have tried my best to give everything I can to her in return. And if I cannot give her health and happiness... if there is no hope for a comfortable and mobile life for her.... then I will give her peace.


Please respect whatever ultimate decision I choose and my thought process behind all of this. We all deal with death and mortality issues differently, and we all would do different things in the same situations. This is a very tough time for me; I am sure you all know how attached and utterly devoted I am to her. I love her more than anything and I can't imagine life without her.

No progress.

Worsening as of today.








If you still can't see a lameness, then use this video to learn what it looks like in the hind end. You can also see at the end where she struggles to turn around.


I'm about 50-50 on the fence about this. 50% of me says I should make some radical changes and try new options and give it one last go, and the other 50% of me says it's not worth it to anyone or fair to try. Either way I'm going to have to make a decision soon as to what I want to do. I'm running out of time.


EDITED TO ADD: My plan is essentially this....
Immediate short term: Stall her, bute, handwalk, coldhose and wrap (all things I promised her I'd never force her to go through again) until I can stabilize this
Long term: Move her to a different facility with a flat dry lot and solo turnout where she can be strictly dieted and coldhosed/wrapped until this stabilizes. Then hopefully get her to lose some weight, try some herbs/homeopathy/e-stim/whatever.
Basically the same thing all over again, forever. Something needs to change RIGHT NOW or she will blow the limb completely. She gets worse every day out in that field and I need to intervene.

Basically... is it more ethical to let her be happy and limping on a worsening limb letting her be a horse, or be miserable and confined and alone for the sake of her leg... with a pretty grim prognosis either way?

Or, I could euthanize.

The Big Picture

Future Hubs has spent more than one evening consoling me lately when I get myself wound up about looking at the whole Big Picture of life instead of little bite-size day-by-day pieces, the likes of which are easier to swallow and deal with in general. He tells me I have a tendency (and he's right) to let myself get overwhelmed by huge, long-term things that seem too big to tackle, instead of just breaking things up into sizable and doable pieces. I had been very good up until now about just letting Gogo's rehab situation cruise along at a day-by-day speed, keeping my thoughts positive and forward-thinking. But last night, as I watched my horse and her ever-worsening lameness hobble around in the roundpen, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed.

She was terrible last night. Ever since the potential reinjury earlier in the month, her RH has just looked terrible. I've done what I can for it while she is in turnout, but it's not enough. The last few times I've seen her, her lameness has been worsening, and last night she was hip-hiking, toe-dragging lame on the RH. I would give it a 2.5-3/5 on the lameness scale. It was bad.

She's not resting it any more than usual, and she's still resting the other hind normally and also standing four-square when the mood strikes. She is also still sound at the walk, like she has always been. She seems happy. She still struggles with pivoting around on her hind end.... she plants both hind legs and shuffles awkwardly around, which is a relatively new thing (past several months or so). Last night was also the first time I saw her struggle when I asked her to move backwards - she hopped painfully back, avoiding putting too much weigh on the RH.

Little increasingly bad signs that just keep adding up.


Looking at the entire big picture, we are now 2 whole years out from the original injury, and she is NO better. (It will be 2 years on September 12th). If anything, she is now worse off than ever because there is such a mess of scar tissue, adhesions, and other structural involvement in the area where where was simply a tendon sheath issue after the first injury. A reinjury, a second reinjury, and now a THIRD reinjury... this past time while doing nothing at all. She reinjured just being out in her field.

It is not ethical to make a mare like this go back and stand miserably in a stall for another period of who-knows-how-long for for a chronic, perpetual injury like this one. It's not fair to sacrifice her quality of life at this point. Qualify of life is about all she has right now.
It is also not ethical to consider euthanasia for a horse who is still walking around fine and happy in her field. Again, quality of life is what we're basing everything around right now. When she stops being comfortable and happy is when she will make that decision for me, if it ever comes down to that.



I can't not look at the entire picture and go hmm, she is now just as lame as she was two years ago during the original injury, only now there is chronic and proably permanent damage in the leg... which leaves her worse off than ever before. And it's only getting worse. Right now, there are no steps forward.... only steps back.

I hate to say it, but I also have to think of it in an economical way as well. I have poured so much time, money, and emotion into this injury, and not a single thing we've done has had long lasting healing effects. I could keep pouring money into fancier and more extreme treatments, but to what purpose and with what guarantee?

Stall rest, controlled exercise, and daily sedation were all things I was willing to do for her legs at the temporary expensive of her mental stability when this injury was fresh and her chances for recovery were very good. It's a different story now.


WHAT is the right thing to do? I don't know anymore.

There are lots of small options and things I could potentially change - moving her to a new facility where she can be in a smaller drylot with a stricter diet, E-Stim, Aquatread, homeopathy, castor oil wraps, essential oils, etc. - but again, are any of these things going to help? I'm willing to give them a reasonable try, or at least some of them, but at this point I'm just grasping at straws.


She's happy, and she's still getting around well enough. So long as she shows me she's willing to keep moseying, I'll keep trying. But you better believe I will do the right thing if she ever tells me that she's done trying and she's had enough.

Comparison Videos

I thought it would be interesting to post a comparison video from last month and this month in terms of lameness. Last month, I thought she looked pretty good, but could still see a very mild lameness and others could too. This month, I can see an obvious lameness but not everyone else sees it. Tell me what you think after watching these back to back:


Gogo 7/11/11:





And Gogo 8/21/11:





I see a worse lameness now, which corresponds to the ugly fat leg. (It was ugly and fat before, but quite a lot worse now.) What do you see?

Another Really Bad Lameness Eval Video

It's pretty much impossible to get a distractable mare to pay attention on the lunge when you are completely ignoring her in favor of handling a iPod recording a video. Sorry about the totally AWFUL quality. Hard to see anything with her head in the area paying attention to absolutely everything except me. She is, and always has been, a giraffe on the lunge - which is why I never, EVER as a rule used to lunge her without equipment on. Talk about unproductive. Also, potentially harmful. Remember Crazy Trainer who lunged Gogo into the ground on a 12m circle for an HOUR a day in ONE direction (to the right) on uneven ground? Six days a week... for SIX MONTHS? Yep... that'll mess a young mare for life. And I wonder why the right continues to be a problem. We wonder sometimes why they break down... if they're just too weak to hold up and have some sort of genetic anomaly. In reality, WE are usually the cause for it - they'd be fine and sturdy and hardy if WE didn't mess them up so badly. The poorly conformed ones break down easily, and the tough ones still have issues if we trash them when they are young and growing. I still, to this day, blame myself for Gogo's accident. And I always will. I blame myself for her re-injuries too. I cantered her on a circle when she wasn't ready the first time. And I rode her out on the beach when she wasn't ready the second. Regardless of whether or not I thought she was ready, she wasn't. And I'm now facing a chronic injury that might result in a permanent lameness because of it.

Anyway, I digress. Here's today's footage:




It's about the same as it was the other day - noticeably lame to the left, and pretty darn good for the most part to the right.

Poor Gogo. I still don't think she injured herself because she's genetically weak, and I don't think she re-injured because of that either. I still think the blame resides with me. It would be irresponsible of me to do what so many horse owners do and blame the horse for not being able to hold up to their workload. In some cases, like with a badly conformed horse, why would a rider put them through something they won't be able to hold up to anyway? And in a well-conformed horse, that in theory SHOULD be able to hold up well under pressure, it's even sadder - how did you manage to break that thing? It's not like he chose to be lame on purpose.

Unless it's in an unrelated pasture/barn/trailer/whatever accident, the blame rests with the rider/trainer/barn manager when a horse goes lame. Disagree with me if you will, but 9 times out of 10, I fully believe that it is the human's fault in one way or another, be it through improper management, improper riding, pushing a horse too much or beyond his limit, or the like. I don't believe that "some horses just break down and that's how they are." All that does is ensure that whoever caused the problem in the first place feels better about themselves and moves the blame to the animal in question, as though it was the horse's own fault that he went lame. There is ALWAYS a reason, whether it an acute injury or repetitive damage.

Even those of us to struggle every day to do the best we can by our athletes don't always get it right.

The Harsh Reality of Turnout

Gogo is, once again, pretty unsound. Not consistently, not horribly, but it's there. Going to the right on the lunge, she looks completely normal and fine... you wouldn't even know there was a problem unless you were truly looking for something, and hard. Going to the left, she has a consistent hitch in her right hind. I am grateful that whatever is going on still appears to be with the SDFT, and that this presentation of lameness has been positively associated with SDFT damage in the past, because this is a classic suspensory presentation. If she had a new suspensory injury on top of everything, I think I'd die. Thankfully, as far as I can tell it's just the same old thing, forever.

To play the complete pessimist, deep down in my heart I think I always knew this would happen when I put her on turnout. I said a year and a half ago that I felt that turnout was "archaic" for a horse with a tendon injury, and received quite a lot of commentary in response. 9 months ago, I retracted my statement and decided that I would turn her out 24/7 and see what kinds of healing powers nature had to offer my mare. Stall rest and controlled exercise brought her back magnificently, but she reinjured twice in the process. Something wasn't working, and so I tried the alternative.

But I had my doubts early on. I wrote here about the fact that turning out a fresh tendon injury is potentially asking for trouble, and wrestled with myself over the ethics of it all. Was it right to trap her in a stall and bubblewrap her in the hopes that her body would heal even though her mind would struggle? Or was it right to turn her out, allow her mind to be happy, and potentially cripple her in the process? The important excerpt is here:

November 26th, 2010: "I am at war with myself over the best course of action for Gogo right now. Every fiber of my being screams against turning her out with a fresh soft-tissue injury. It's simply a fact: she WILL get hurt. It WILL hurt her. It MAY permanently damage and deform her. It MAY offer perfect, miracle healing. It might completely ruin her, and cosmetically and structurally destroy her permanently. The last horse I saw that was turned out with a SDFT injury ended up literally so deformed and lame that she knuckled over at the knee in an effort to not use her painful limb, and was severely lame at the walk even after the tendon was declared set for life. THAT could be Gogo. OR, she could take good care of her body, build up scar tissue, and come back as a mildly useable animal someday. The fact of the matter is that the body compensates for whatever it needs to in order to make itself functional. Likely, she'll build up an ugly bundle of disorganized scar tissue and heal herself. She'll hurt herself out there, oh yes! She will. Which is why I am at horrible, stomach-turning odds with myself. It's the right thing to do, retire her and let her loose to be a horse and give up hope of her ever being really rideable again. If she ever IS rideable, great! If not, it's fine too, so long as eventually she turns out pain free. Understandably, this is completely killing me."


In my heart, I felt as though I just couldn't trap her in a stall any longer - what was I achieving if she was just going to reinjure in the end? And so, I turned her out.

At first, I believed in it. I believed that nature would take my sweet mare and heal her. I still believe that nature has healing powers that modern humans simply cannot replicate through our controlled settings and our medications. (Which is why I chose the barefoot thing as a career... I believe in the restorative powers of a body's natural process. Humans just can't do it better than nature can.) For a short while, a spark ignited in my heart - returning my horse to her naturalness would help her so much! That's the answer! She seemed pretty happy once she adjusted, and I settled in to allow nature do its thing.

She got sounder. She got lamer. She got sounder. She got fatter. She got lamer. She got sounder. She got fatter. Her feet changed. She got fatter. She got sounder. She got lamer.

Six months into it, I had hope. She wasn't fully sound but she looked pretty darn good to me. She hadn't come sound like she had during stall rest and controlled exercise (2 months into the first injury and again into the first reinjury, she was sound), but hey, nature takes time. Once at the clinic, however, she displayed pretty constant lameness on the right hind. Ultrasound showed that there was still tendon degeneration as well as a tendon sheath full of stringy, messy adhesions. It looked like a pot of spaghetti spilled inside of her tendon sheath. (Tasty, I know). There was also annular ligament involvement, more than ever before.

Her body was doing exactly what I had predicted it would do: "Likely, she'll build up an ugly bundle of disorganized scar tissue and heal herself." Heal, at this point, is a very subjective term. That's just what tendon injuries out in a field usually do.

We injected the tendon sheath with Kenalog and went on our way. The vet advised that we continue with turnout (as if I was considering anything else), since this was now considered a chronic injury, and that I sit on her and see what happened.

The leg went down after the injection. She blew an adhesion and went lame. The leg blew up again. She got sounder. Life went on.

At the new farm, I tried to sit on her again, and again, she went quite lame. The leg blew up again, in a very grotesque kind of way, and this time it stayed. The leg as of today:






It's probable that she has reinjured, or done a new injury, or keeps blowing continual adhesions, or something. There is lameness and swelling and there is no end in sight to this whole vicious cycle. If she stays in turnout, she continues to walk around on an injured limb, possibly injuring it further or causing strain to other parts of her body. But at this point, if she gets stalled, it will kill her. It didn't do her any favors before, and it's not going to do her any favors now.




This all basically boils down to this: I don't think I did her any favors physically when I turned her out. In fact, I may have completely doomed her soundness forever. Maybe that's being a little dramatic, but honestly, she's lamer now than she was before I turned her out 24/7, and the leg is now ugly and fat and full of adhesions when before it didn't have any. Before turnout, she was trim and muscular. Now, she is morbidly obese, and it is going to be next to impossible to get the weight off of her while she is unridable. (And the weight adds to her lameness, so it's a vicious circle). Before turnout, she has gorgeous, picture-perfect hooves. Now, I'm doing constant damage control due to all the changes they have gone through.

It's too late for stall rest now, and it would mentally wreck her. There's nothing I can do anymore except just keep her turned out and hope that she remains happy and relatively comfortable. At this point, I don't really have any hope that she'll return to any level of functional soundness. Trail pony someday, if I'm lucky. Maybe. We also have the option of cutting her annular ligament, which has been discussed all along and which I violently opposed up until now. That could possibly be a helpful last resort. Or, it could be a total disaster. Who knows?



It feels like Metro all over again. When he first went lame, I said to myself, "Well, he'll just max out at Training level in eventing, and that's ok." When his lameness progressed, it became, "Well, he'll make a super dressage horse." When he worsened, it became, "Well, he'll be a great trail horse." It wasn't long before it became, "Well, he'll be really nice to look at in a field." At the end of it all, when it was clear he wouldn't even be comfortable enough to hobble around in the pasture, it became, "Well.... this is the end."

I hope it doesn't come down to that. As long as she is walking around in comfort and is happy, we'll keep trying. But I'll do the right thing by my horse, if she tells me so. It's cruel to make a horse hobble around in a field in constant pain just for an owner's selfish emotional needs. I'm not that person and I'll never do that to her.

It's obviously not NEARLY that bad at this point. But honestly, having previously lost one in a similar slow downward spiral, I can't help but worry about it.


Oh, Gogo.

Fat Camp Fail

Want to know how to induce lameness in your previously healing wubba-chubba mare? Say these four words to her: "You need Fat Camp."
She will then realize that she is about to go back to some sort of level of work, and she will understandably decide that she must take whatever precautionary measures that she must to ensure that this does not happen. Voila! Lameness.

I've had growing concerns over the past couple of months about the state of Gogo's enormity, as I've talked quite a lot about. The vet had told me in June after our checkup that I should get on and w/t/c her, but that plan failed pretty spectacularly. She seemed to bounce back well from that episode, but I wasn't really that convinced that she was going to be fine to do anything faster than a walk. I decided that I would start carefully, on August 1st, with a walk-only rehab program that would take me through two months, and at the end of it we would reevaluate and see if she was ready to trot.

Well. On Monday, I got to the barn early, and Gogo's RH looks kind of ugly. I opted to get on anyway, and do my scheduled 10 minutes of walk work. She felt fine at the walk, like she always does, but at the end of 10 minutes I just had to know how she felt at the trot.... whether or not the ugly leg meant anything.

Yep. Super lame. I should have known.

When I got off I cold-hosed her for 10 minutes, but it made no difference. Back in the barn, the leg looked worse than ever. Feeling defeated, I turned her back out again, only to watch her execute a beautiful prancing trot and decent looking canter on her way back out to her friends. It was hard to tell from my angle how lame she was, but she propped pretty hard with both hinds when she was slowing down, which is what she has historically done when lame behind.


At this point, I think riding is just a bad idea in general.


There's not really much I can do at this point. Being out in turnout might cripple her for life. But being in a stall at this point would kill her. I have more to write about this later. As for right now, well..... I dunno, really.




(Four inches of mohawk really does not help the Fatty Fat look on her.... I promise that she is not quite as morbidly obese as she appears in that picture. Even though she is terrifyingly gigantic.)

Tell me what you see!

Tell me what you see in this video in terms of soundness.



What I see is a horse who has not been this sound since her reinjury back in November '10, 8 months ago. For the first time, I am almost willing to call her "sound." (At least, as of today.) Blowing the suspected adhesion seems to have done her a world of good. The tendon sheath injection was definitely the right way to go. Regular sheath injections will probably be necessary for her if we are to hope for a riding career (competitive or otherwise), but that's fine. Whatever needs to be done to keep her comfortable.


And speaking of all things veterinary, I consulted with Dr. H about the udder today, which was HUGE and lumpy when I arrived at the barn. Her temp was still normal today (100.5), and she still doesn't mind her udder being incessantly poked and prodded. The discharge is still a milky-watery liquid, and it doesn't have thickness/chunks/odor/other nasty things in it (hope you're not eating right now.... mmmm mental image), which is good. We agreed to treat it like a mastitis, and I ran up to the vet office to get 5 days of Uniprim. She definitely won't eat that in her (meager) amount of supplements she gets daily, so I have to shove it down her throat via syringe. I also am trying rubbing castor oil the udder as well, which was suggested to me... it seems like a stupid idea, but I guess if it works, then there you go. If it fails, whatever... I don't expect it to do much anyway. The antibiotics will hopefully knock out the infection, and if I keep emptying out the udder, hopefully we'll clear this up in the next week.

Joys of having a mare! I'd take this udder nonsense over regular sheath cleanings any day though, I will tell you that with NO hesitation!

Harsh Realities

I think it's time I really sat down and took a serious look at the entirety of Gogo's eternally long and depressing rehab. Over a year and a half has gone into endless fruitless attempts to bring her back, and we are just a few months out from the two year mark (Sept. '09).

The original injury to both hinds occurred during a slip on XC at the 2009 AEC, with tenosynovitis in both hinds and a small distal core lesion on the LH SDFT. Rehab went smoothly and traditionally (stall rest, wraps, coldhosing/tubbing/icing, handwalking, treadmill, medical turnout pen, back under saddle at 2 months at the walk, trot under saddle month 3.5, canter month 5), and then she blew an adhesion between the sheath and the SDFT on the RH in early March '10, taking a good piece of tendon with it. This new injury went through an even stricter rehab (stall rest, wraps, coldhosing/tubbing/icing, NO turnout, treadmill only, back under saddle at 2 months at the walk, trot again at 4 months, canter again at 6 months and hacking outside of the arena, turnout again at 7.5 months, small crossrails at 7.5 months), and everything was going beautifully until one small misstep one day during a hack out in mid-November '10. She reinjured the RH in the exact same spot as before, only now there was annular ligament involvement. The vet advised turning her out for a year and seeing what we had at the end of it. Six months into 24/7 turnout, she was seen by the vet here in TX (June '10), and multiple adhesions were found in the RH tendon sheath, along with disorganization of the scar tissue in the SDFT (both hinds had some extend of this but she was sound on the LH, slightly lame on the RH). The tendon sheath on the RH was injected with Kenalog, and the vet advised sitting on her again at the w/t/c for 15 or so minutes a few times a week. About 5 or so rides into this, she came up pretty lame RH, with fairly significant swelling in the area of the tendon sheath. This improved slightly in the days following. Following the Kenalog injection, the leg had been looking really quite magnificent. Now it looks about like it did when she reinjured in November.




There is no way to know if she just blew an adhesion or if she has reinjured the tendon without another ultrasound. I haven't even called the vet yet to let him know though. I'll leave him a message I suppose, and see what he thinks, but at this point is there any point? I'm still going to just keep her turned out, and I don't know what the point of trying any more aggressive therapies might be. What am I trying to do here? What kind of horse am I trying to bring back if she just cannot stay sound? Adhesions have to go, it's true... and it might not be that bad. But it might be, and the fact that she now has a chronic injury with permanent remodeling to the SDFT and annular ligament leaves me with a horse that will have questionable soundness in the future. There is pretty much no way she'll ever jump again, much less event... and even if there was a chance, I couldn't bring myself to risk it. Will she ever do dressage again? I had thought so, until a few days ago. Now I'm not so sure. Will she even be able to be trail ridden? Will she do anything at all?

I'm not trying to be pessimistic or mopey in any way. I'm trying to be realistic. I have to be. I have to evaluate this with a level head or else I might not make the best decision for her... I might be making a decision for me. And I just can't do that. I know too many animals out there who are hobbling painfully around, medicated and kept alive for their owner's own selfish needs and ways when they really need to either be retired or let go. I owe it to her to put her needs first, always.

This is unfortunately the depressing and harsh reality of turning a horse with a soft tissue injury out. Without keeping an injury such as hers confined with controlled exercise, you risk the horse doing additional damage to the original injury, or laying down a tangled mess of scar tissue instead of a decently aligned pattern. There are of course exceptions... some horses heal in turnout perfectly, and some horses on stall rest totally fall apart. I guess you just never know. Do I regret turning her out? Well... no, I guess not. I didn't really have an option at that point though. Obviously the stall rest/controlled exercise thing just wasn't doing the trick. She was healing amazingly, then reinjuring... what was the point of it?

On turnout, she is not really doing a good job of healing. She's just sort of toodling around, doing her thing. She's not doing poorly, but she's not sound. The leg stays down until she stops moving, then it fills pretty dramatically. That's indicative of acute damage.



At this point, I don't really know what to think, or what to do. What is there to think or do? Maybe another year and a half of turnout is just what she needs. Maybe then we'll see what we have. Right now, we don't have much of anything.

But she's happy and she's comfortable walking around, so at least there is that.

Very Brief Update

Well, we can't be sure of what's going on, but it appears as though Gogo has possibly blown an adhesion, or might have reinjured herself, probably at some point two days ago. I sat on her in the late afternoon, and she didn't really feel so great. It seemed to get progressively worse pretty quickly, and when I dismounted and checked the leg, there was pronounced swelling in the tendon sheath. That's probably indicative of an adhesion tearing, which in and of itself isn't bad, but if you remember the last time she tore an adhesion, this can also take pieces of good tendon with it.
Yesterday, there was still a fair bit of swelling in the leg; I snapped a few pictures which I will upload later. Today, the leg looks quite close to normal again. I was going to put her on the lunge to get a better look at her, but it was 106 degrees and I was feeling pretty depressed about the whole mess. (It's still 90 degrees at almost midnight right now.... yikes.) Maybe tomorrow if I get ambitious I'll see what I can see.
At this point, I really need to be realistic. Yes, blowing an adhesion isn't really all that bad, but if it's more than that I don't really know what I'm going to do. What are we really trying to do here?


I'll write more about it later. I need a nightcap.

Six Month Ultrasound

Well.... that wasn't quite as great as I had hoped it would be.

Today Gogo went in for her 6 month ultrasound (6 months from when we first turned her out 24/7). I cleaned her all up this morning, bath included... she of course rolled right before loading on the trailer. Typical.

By the way, want to know how to make me dance? Give me a bucket full of angry wasps. I will practically do backflips to get away from them. (There was a nest being built in the bucket I keep overturned on top of my hitch... I picked it up and was suddenly faced with an army of angry wasps. This is not the first time they've built a nest in my trailer... and certainly not the first time they've created a veritable hell for me otherwise.) I only wish I had been able to video my crazed antics as I attempted to breakdance around my trailer avoiding divebombing wasps while hooking up.



((Gogo waiting to be unloaded.))

Dr. H palpated and flexed both hinds, watching her trot on a straight line in the driveway. He also observed her turning - and commented on how she seemed more reluctant to pivot on the right hind than the left. I personally have noticed that she is less comfortable standing for her left hind to be trimmed, like it's not comfortable to stand for any length of time on the right. She was a little lamer today than she has been, although the last few times I've seen her trot it was on soft ground. On hard ground, it's a bit of a different story. She's not THAT lame, but she's not sound.

In the roundpen she was about the same:



Lamer than on soft ground for sure.



I'm not sure how we did it without Crisco and a crowbar, but we somehow managed to wedge her gigantic fat fanny into the stocks:


((Fat mare in a little stocks...))


Ultrasound showed what Dr. H suspected about her gigantic windpuffs: multiple stringy adhesions freeloading (some attached) in the tendon sheath of her right SDFT. It sort of looked like a pot of spaghetti. There was also some disorganization of the actual tendon, moreso than the last time we ultrasounded. Before, there was a definite little black hole of a focal lesion in one spot. Now, it's just sort of an offcolored area of mess. The left hind showed some very small degeneration in the area of the original injury as well, and a possible adhesion in the sheath, but given the fact that she is sound on the left we are just taking it as old healed tissue. The right hind is the real problem.

That was the risk we took in putting her in turnout... that's just sometimes how these things heal when they're not controlled.

The other problem is her annular ligament at the back of her fetlock. It appears to be doubled in size compared to how it should be, and it is possibly putting pressure on the SDFT, not allowing it to fully heal. (If it ever fully heals). We're not going to do anything about it right at the moment, but if there isn't improvement at her next ultrasound, we may need to cut it. I really, really don't want to do that... but we might not have a choice. It might really help.




Again, she's really not THAT lame. She's just a little off. Amazing how just 'a little off' can have such dramatic things behind it. You just never know.


Dr. H injected the tendon sheath with Kenalog, and got out what fluid he could through the needle pre-injection. He said he expects the excess fluid in leg to decrease over the next few days, at which time he wants me to sit on her again. Walk, trot, canter for about 15 minutes at a time, a couple times a week.... I can sure do that. It's not going to be hurting her at this point... this is a chronic injury now, and there are permanent changes in her SDFT. Which I expected... but still didn't really want to hear.


Will she do dressage? Probably. Will she jump again? Maybe not. Will she event again? Probably not. It's pretty unlikely. But it was a long shot in the first place.



I guess that's just how it goes. I will certainly enjoy getting on her bareback and loping around the field a few times a week for the next couple of months. We'll see what we have in 60-90 days.



Poo.

In Which Gogo Permanently Defeats Her Muzzle

Hmmmmmmm. Well, I knew this day was coming. After a long, exhausting battle to keep Gogo’s grazing muzzle on during the day, she has finally progressed from simply removing it to actually completely shredding it. It is currently in several pieces in the front seat of my car while I attempt to figure out a restoration. Seeing as I am about as handy as a cream cheese bagel, I don’t see any magical repairs happening anytime soon.

Gogo had been wearing her grazing muzzle for half days up until about a week ago. I then was cruel enough to switch her to full-day muzzle wearing, and she clearly wanted nothing to do with that idea. Day one went fine, except for the fact that Gogo spent most of her day listlessly toodling back and forth across her field, refusing to eat (although she did drink). Day two she rubbed her two brains cells together VERY hard, and figured out how to get the muzzle off. I put the muzzle on at 7:30am, and it was still on at noon. By 5pm, it was off and missing in the field. I located it, dusted it (and her flymask, removed and torn) off, and hung it up for the night, placing it back on in the next morning. By noon, it was off again. Still undeterred, I gave it another shot, wondering whether or not it would once again be off by midday, or if she would just give up and figure it out. When I came back at lunchtime, it was off, but this time the snap was attached to the diamond mesh, the breakaway was broken, the ground around the fence was torn up, and the entirety of the sewn on parts of the straps on the muzzle were torn off. Apparently, she got it stuck on the mesh, struggled, blasted through the entire thing, and escaped to freedom. At least she didn’t hurt herself, but she could have.

Well. Even if it had a breakaway, the muzzle obviously didn’t quite do what it was supposed to when it got caught on something. I don’t really have any interest in letting Gogo break her neck while getting hung on something in the name of diet and weight loss, so I think I need a new plan. The only problem is…. What else can I do?

There is nothing else I can take away from her diet outside of pasture – she isn’t eating grain or hay, just supplements and pasture. I can’t create a track system either. I would LOVE to give it a try, but again, the property Gogo is on is my landlord’s hayfield, all of which is hayed. Setting up a track system would take away from precious hay… although I supposed you could argue that it actually SAVES hay in the middle of the field…. No matter, the argument isn’t going to fly. I can’t muzzle her, seeing as she is potentially going to hurt herself in the struggle to remove it every day. I could potentially stall her for portions of the day, but whenever she ceases movement, she stocks up pretty dramatically, not to mention the fact that I think her future soundness is going to bank on perpetual movement. Honestly, if I can give it to her in any way, shape or form, I fully intend on keeping her out 24/7 for the remainder of her days. I could potentially continue her handwalks down the road, but again, I unfortunately don’t think this is a particularly safe option (freeroaming territorial dogpacks in all directions). I could, pending vet approval, start to sit on her again regularly….. but should I give it six more months in turnout, like I had originally planned? Is it going to be too risky to sit on her, or do I potentially risk further damage to that leg with all the extra heavy fat she is carrying around?

Dilemmas, dilemmas. I’m not really sure what I should do. I don’t really have anywhere safe to ride out here anyway – the pasture isn’t exactly a nice level surface, and the hay is up to her knees. That being said, she was cantering lithely back and forth up the fenceline today without an issue while looking for Bobo, so maybe terrain is less than an issue than I figure. But will she behave herself if I sit on her? If I have to drug her, there is no way I can ride on anything but level footing. It’s just not a chance I can take.

We’re still planning on having an ultrasound done in early June, but this will have to wait until the EHV scare settles down. We’ve had a case here in Weatherford, and all the local equine hospitals are completely closed down for the time being. I’m obviously not in a hurry, but I am looking forward to it. I’m not sure I’ll follow vet’s orders if he tells me to start riding right now, which he likely will. I’m not really sure what to do.

Suggestions?

We don't see no stinking lameness!

As has been the first week of every month custom since January, I put Gogo on the lunge this afternoon for a minute or so to check her level of soundness. She trotted out REALLY sound for Dr. H last month when she got her first set of spring shots and had her Coggins pulled, but that was in a straight line on concrete. It's sometimes a different story on slightly uneven footing while on a circle.


But honestly, she's looking REALLY good!



Please ignore the neverending clucking. Apparently, that's what I do when I am not paying enough attention to her over my video-taking and can't get her to GO anywhere.

There might be some residual stiffness on the RH, or maybe I'm just looking for it. It's subtle, if it's there. That also could be the fact that she's been out of work for six months now.

Want to know the key to the shine? Apparently, it's don't bathe or groom your horse for two weeks.... swear it. She's been enjoying her level of filth, and apparently it doesn't actually mean she's filthy in any way. She's gleaming!

Her pasture is drying out as well and her feet are making a very quick turnaround... more on that later!

Our first ultrasound since the reinjury is coming up whenever I can manage to secure a day off.... THINK SOUND! (Also send day-off vibes.... I haven't had one in five weeks and I am pooped!)