Pick yourself up and dust yourself off!

So the good news is that Gerrys back legs are now 100%! Hooray! The swelling has reduced and the vets say it may never be completely gone so I am happy with him just being sound and not in any pain. The vets were booked to come out and give me the go ahead to get back on board and start riding again..it was a Tuesday afternoon and I went to fetch him from the field for his appointment. “Oh you’ve pulled a shoe…damn that’s so annoying, guess I’ll need to go search for that and speak super nicely to the farrier to come put it back on” was what was going through my head as I lead him in from the field. The vet was running late, but once he arrived I got Gerry out and started telling him I was pretty happy with his progress and thought he had made a full recovery. We walked away and walked back towards the vet, then the trot up.. as you do! “can you just go once more” he said… Maybe he just wants to confirm its all ok I’m thinking. “It is the back legs I’m here to see isn’t it?” me :puzzled… “Yeahhhh…” “He looks lame in front” the vet said….. ERM sorry no this is not part of the plan!!! So not only had Gerry pulled off a shoe, but at the same time whilst he’s been flying around in the field having the time of his life….has also done his check ligament. I’m not sure what my face would have looked like but my eyes just sprung a leak and didn’t stop for the next 3 hours. I was absolutley gutted. 7 weeks box rest and a total 10 weeks off already was enough stress & upset, never mind having another 12 weeks (for full healing) on the cards. THANKFULLY the vet said he could go in a small paddock as opposed to being box-rested again. Everyone rallied round and helped me build a small paddock, heave some water and buckets up to the field and there were offers of help all round, some of the chums even came flying down to supply hugs!! (you know who you are) so great to have such kind and helpful people around when you feel like your worlds ending! Dramatic, I know, but I think when I had such good expectations for being able to get back on board and then for everything to just take such an awful turn I just wasn’t expecting it and broke down. The good(ish) part was that the injury had only just been sustained either that night or morning, so we set to cold therapy straight away and gave it a good chance at healing well. What wont give it a good chance at healing is if Gerry decides to be a tool/tube/idiot/drama queen (– delete as appropriate) while he is supposed to be resting. I feel so bad for him because the poor boy just absolutley loves to work and be ridden and so far his saddle hasn’t seen even a second of the Scottish sunlight this summer and it doesn’t look like it will this year! Thinking about it – its probs mouldy..I should clean that.. Anyway, we built him a small ½ tennis court size pen as instructed by the vet and although he decided the small horse eating pen constructed from electric fence tape & posts within his normal field was absolutley terrifying at first, we did get him in it after a few minutes. I gave him a pat, some sweeties and told him it was ok, unclipped his leadrope and turned round and shut the gate over. I took 2 photos of him at this point and that drew a swift end to his injury paddock visit as he took 1 stride of canter and jumped over the fence, ran back to his friends and went “Sorry mum but I don’t think so!” Sigh. Why do I have a horse again? Why did I decide this was the lifestyle for me? Urrrghhhh. We’ll rethink. My head was so sore from crying about 5 gallons of tears and being so inconsolable that I had to give up for the evening and leave him in his stable overnight to regather my thoughts in the morning. He box-rested the next day too, reasonably well – I think he knew it was his own fault he was in there. Shoe went back on the next day and we started to go about thinking up option c) There is a designated injury park at the yard however Gerry has been in there previously and didn’t favour it much, we managed to find him a companion for the injury park and thankfully there is enough grass in there to keep them both entertained. He’s been in there 5 days now and both horses seem to be coping well with their temporary new field. Even during a horrendous thunder storm neither seemed to move around much (thankfully) and they kept one another company.

So that is my stress and drama for June. The vet says Gerry should/could potentially come sound within 2-3 weeks and then we can come up with a rehab plan that will probably consist of a week of walking for 5 mins a day then a week at 10 mins and so on.. hopefully I can do some of that rehab walking actually on his back, cause that would sure make it slightly easier to swallow. Hopefully my next blog is more positive, maybe by then I will have given up and bought a pet rabbit to ride side saddle instead…. Who knows. Ha! Kidding. I’ll get at least TWO rabbits.

Now that he’s back out and moving around again he’s back on the calm & shine, I’d tried to cut back his sugar intake as much as I could while he was box-resting, but he loves his calm and shine so we’re back to normality with our feeding regime. I’ve added some extra supplements for his joints and natural anti-inflammatory too to try to keep him comfortable if arthritis is going to start bothering him in future.

Until next month, Grace & hop along x