Damage in Pictures - Ultrasound

I always like actually being able to see what I'm dealing with. I wish I had x-ray vision, it'd surely be a lot cheaper.

Dr. R, arguably the best equine lameness diagnostician in Vermont, came out on February 5th to take images of both hocks and ultrasound the RH, which was the original injured leg. Stella had been at the new barn for a couple weeks by then, and was settling nicely into "doing stuff" that resembled rehab. She had been chiropracted by Dr. R the week before this visit, but something in my gut told me I really needed to see what exactly was going on in her joints, if not just to confirm that she was healed and ready for a job.

Glad I did.

The difference between the RH and LH suspensories is HUGE when you look at them together. For those who aren't savvy at reading u/s images, the first image is take looking at the back of her leg, u/s a few inches below the point of the hock. In the second and third, the images are flipped so the horse's leg is viewed as if it were horizontal.

I think the actual measurement difference between the two suspensories was almost 4mm. The LH measured something like 9.3mm, and if her RH had matched up approximately, there'd be no concern. But 4mm is a big difference, which indicates some kind of trauma. You can also see, in the first image, that it's enlarged: you also get the benefit there of seeing all the fuzzy grey, which is irregular scar tissue patterns, indicating it was injured but is now healed.

Yes, good news is, healed. Also good news, no lesions showed up in the u/s, which would make her chances of re-injury much higher.

Coming up: x-rays

Massive Info Dump

Fasten your seatbelts, folks...

As of, oh, three weeks ago, the vet cleared Stella for a larger turnout (which I'd been doing anyway, oops) and handwalking. Now I'm no stranger to ligament injuries: for long time readers of this and the old blog, you'll remember Ernie sustained two different suspensory ligament tears in his right hind that added up to a total of over a year of stall rest. But this one worried me slightly more given Stella's less-than-stellar hind leg conformation and the fact that we're talking about damage to her hock, the most complicated joint in the equine body and the one that most often has horse owners wanting to headdesk.

So, naturally, I didn't want to mess this up. And yet, as I thought to myself one day when I was unpacking and watching her hightail it into her stall away from chasing flies, if she was going to do more damage, it certainly wasn't going to be from anything I'd be doing. She clearly doesn't need my help.

And yet I've done no handwalking. I find it pointless, to be honest. This mare does enough laps around her paddock andher private pasture to equal a hundred handwalks a day. Twenty more minutes with me on the end of a leadrope is going to do very little in the way of real rehab. Instead, I've been slowly putting together a stretching and massage routine paired with long lining a couple times a week. The issue is less a lack of movement and more a lack of purposeful movement. I need to get her thinking stretchy, flexible, round thoughts while she's moving, instead of just poking around at the end of a line.

All thing considered, I like how she's looking right now. She's gained some weight back, she's shiny and dappled out and the thickened fluid in her hock (that the vet said would likely take months to go away, but that shouldn't affect her long-term) is mostly gone. I haven't wrapped her legs in a few weeks.

She's still got no topline, surprise. What little there was went the way of the Dodo when she got hurt (and even moreso with the tail injury, which I'm happy to say is fully healed and hasn't seemed to cause any lasting damage other than some atrophy along her dock; she's got full tail function though). We finished the Vitamin E concentrate and have switched to a Vitamin E powder for maintenance, which she'll stay on most likely long term.

Now onto the newest bits. My therapist happens to live on a huge farm about 45 minutes from where I live now. Said therapist, aside from being an amazing counselor, also does Equine Assisted Therapy and has several horses on the farm that he and his partner use in their sessions. I discussed with him a week or two ago the fact that I haven't moved anywhere with Stella in some time. For a while, I was tossing around the idea of selling her: it occurred to me that there was a distinct possibility that we just weren't a good match. She needs someone with skill and time: lots and LOTS of time. I just doesn't have the latter at this point in my life, and while I have enough of the former, my confidence has been shaken with her more than once to the point where I don't feel comfortable starting her back up on my own.

Said therapist, after listening to me gripe about how awful I feel about the situation I'm in with Stella, smiled and said, "Did it ever occur to you that this isn't all your stuff? That Stella is her own entity with her own personality and issues? That maybe she's just learned to relate to you in this way, but that it's not her reacting to you in the moment?" My jaw about dropped off.

What? You mean it's NOT all my fault? You mean every time I go to work with her and I see her nostrils flare and start to hear her breathing more rapidly, that when I see that lower lip get tight and start to flap, that when her eyes get big and concerned and she starts to fiddle and squirm and look irritated and upset, it's NOT all me?

Fast forward an hour and we'd weeded through some options as to what to do moving forward. For those who are wondering why I'm discussing my horse with my counselor, it's simple: *psychologist hat on* we've figured out that anything that causes me emotional stress negatively affects me sexually (sorry if this is TMI, folks, but we all do it). When it comes to intimate situations with a partner, emotional stress is a killer. It transforms into pressure, and when I'm placed under pressure or feel like I'm lacking control, my whole sexual being shuts off. So we've had to start addressing my issues with intimacy from a more holistic perspective, not from just the angle of sex.

*psychologist hat off*

Basically, my therapist offered me an amazing option: he'd talk to his partner, K, about having her work with me and evaluate both myself and Stella from an entirely training-based perspective. I could share with her information from our sessions but I wouldn't have to if it didn't seem pertinent. I could trailer Stella there and work with K, get her opinion and potential training advice/a direction to go in, and then go from there. We discussed boarding Stella up there for a few days every couple weeks or so, or having K come here. Either way, I about jumped at the idea. I had found a really great trainer a while back, but she's since moved farther away and isn't as available. Not to mention my schedule has changed dramatically.

We'll be discussing this more, and I mentioned to him the physical limitations Stella has at this time (vet still wants us to limit movement above the walk and a little trot in straight lines, so roundpenning would be a stretch...) but hopefully within a couple weeks I will finally be getting someone else in on this. It's about time I stopped taking this burden on my shoulders and accepted a few things, namely that this horse is her own being and has her own way of dealing with things and relating to the world. Dumping all of what happens with her on myself only leads to guilt, which leads to serious emotional complications for me.

On a final note, I've relocated. I finally moved out of my parents house (which was a disaster, but that's for another day) and moved into the little cabin on the same property that Stella is at. It's been wonderful to be so close and cut out an hour commute round trip just to do chores. Between the two jobs and working a full seven days a week, I need all the time I can scrape up, and this has freed up quite a bit.

More to come as things develop.

Let's Go Another Round, Shall We?

So more bad news, and this time a bit more somber, too.

Somehow, at some point between Sunday at 9PM and Monday at 6AM, Stella did something that possibly broke or fractured one of her coccygeal vertebrae. I went to do chores and groom her Monday morning to find her unable to use her tail, extremely sensitive to any sort of touch (imagine how much pressure breathing on a horse's hide would create, and that's how little it takes) around her tailhead and posterior aspect of her haunches, and increasing swelling around her dock.

Honestly, I don't even know where to begin. I feel like I need to go to the UPS store, buy their entire supply of bubble wrap and create a padded enclosure for this mare. My only guess is that she reared up at some point and lost her balance, landing on her sacrum/tail head. It was very windy Sunday night and a little spooky for the horses, but when I left she was eating a more or less calm. However, I found out in the last couple days that both neighbors living on the property heard her squealing multiple times that night, and she is back in heat. That may have something to do with it, but I can't know for sure...

I had to clip the swollen area to apply the Surpass with any sort of effectiveness, but even with this crappy phone camera photo you can see how filled it is. So much as blow air that and you'd swear she had a fire under her belly, she's so reactive.

I've noticed since I discovered this that her tail head has started to take on a sunken appearance between her flanks, similar to how the flow of water carves out little stream beds in gravel driveways after a good, hard rain. She still isn't swishing her tail freely like I'd like to see, but she can lift it almost horizontally now when she postures to pee or pass manure. Unfortunately there isn't much to do except play the waiting game and hope it improves. Indications that I need the vet back out include if she starts to lose anal tone, starts to have severe atrophy on either flank or continues to have issues doing her business. So far it's been OK, but it doesn't stop the worried mom in me from wondering what the hell happened to begin with.

On top of all this, she CONTINUES to come into relentless heats. I gave her the first of 3 Depo shots before I found about the CL damage, and ceased them after because I figured if she was going to separated from everyone for 5 months anyway, I may as well save money where I can. However, just being able to touch noses over the fence is enough to get her squealing and being ridiculous. A friend of mine helped me put up another double line of fence in her already-tiny paddock, making it even smaller and so she can't touch noses with the other horses. I feel awful, because it's very much like a prison, and I'm sure she feels likewise, but until such a time as she chills out, I can't afford anymore heartache or vet bills.

W/ her Back on Track blanket. Apparently the hay is greener on the other side...