Just limping around with a sprained ankle. People have suspected it is fractured, but I’m pretty sure it is a bad sprain. I can walk on it, and I have been riding, haha. The mobility is impacted and the ankle is very stiff, but generally it’s not that painful? My leg tendon that I twisted hurt WAY WORSE omgggg. Fortunately that has been improving through me rehabbing it/stretching it every day, which was absolutely excruciating to start with.
So, I continue to sit around, though I am more mobile and actually able to drive (it’s still a bit tough on my ankle given the limited mobility of it).
Still hanging around, still limping. I finally got it checked out at a private clinic (paid $130 for the pleasure) because I could NOT get in anywhere public to have it looked at–and I did have a lot of friends/family asking if I’d broken it. Nope, no break! Luckily it is a soft tissue injury, my ankle bruising and foot swelling are going down albeit slowly, and the excruciating pain I have been feeling in my shin area is muscle related…So, the fun news is that I get to stretch it and rehab it every day. You literally pay for it every day.
I was watching CSI and one of the crime scene techs makes a mention that there are five kinds of tears. It was weirdly poetic. And scientific? It’s true. You have grief tears, pain tears, happy tears. Actually now that I am googling, there are three types of tears. Emotional, basal and reflex tears. Apparently emotional tears are unique to humans. I feel like I have randomly cried all of them this week. I had to eat the $300 cost of a registered horse show I was supposed to be attending all weekend. We were going to camp, and horse show, and hang out with horse friends in the sun! Instead, I am in pain and hobbling around, feeling afraid of my vulnerability and sometimes collapsing and falling down because the pain is so great.
Yes, I cried a few angry tears this week. My stupid fault, stupid accident, expensive and stupid and just…I have cried tears of frustration many times this week, as well as pain. I’m wallowing in this weird, bitter irony of having the looming spectre of Oats being so injured with so many vet visits, rehab, wrapping, meds, more meds…To my own serious leg injury? WTF? Who exactly did I screw in the universe?
I’m still vaguely afraid of the stairs. Ian has been helping me dutifully all week going to the stables to lead, tack up and groom Mr. Oats. Oats has been a very saintly pony, not putting a hoof wrong while I ride (yes I am still riding, very, very, very carefully) lightly and briefly. I mount at the mounting block, and I also dismount at it to minimize jarring the injury.
I have been trying to walk more, with some success. It takes forever and it’s a painful combination of limping and kind of shuffling. With the leg stretching and Advil, I have enjoyed some more mobility. Getting socks and shoes on is the most painful part of the process and I do so very gingerly.
I am now a full week out from the accident, and still incredibly frustrated and angry, but I’ll live, I guess. I swear to god, I will not take my mobility for granted!!!
Oh, I was riding a high. Having a blast volunteering at Victoria Beer Week (so fun, highly recommend both volunteering and attending) and then when my husband and I were walking home from the afterparty on Saturday, I tripped over a small parking barrier as we cut across the park going to our house and seriously injured my leg and ankle. DAMN DAMN DAMN.
We had such a fun time with the volunteering- we did Beer and Pizza night as servers, something Ian and I were very bad at (I dropped a slice of pizza on the ground, and spilled beer by bumping into the wall, haha) but you know? It was still super fun! The vibe was good and man, we were so busy! I prefer that when we volunteer- keep me busy. I don’t want to hang around, you know?
All the volunteers were invited to the afterparty at 10:30 pm, and also we scored free tickets to the final event ‘Touchdown’ so we went there a little bit later, enjoyed some beers, seltzers and ciders (Saltspring was outstanding, so good!) and then stayed later for the afterparty. All good right? Right….Except we drank too much, unfortunately. In an effort to curb the weight gain I experienced over the months in Mexico, I have not really been drinking for a few weeks- a beer or two once a week is it. I felt so good, so into it that I didn’t realize how inebriated I had gotten.
We enjoyed free food and beers, and then left our car at the venue and walked the 4km home. A bit of a hike but safety first! All was good (basically, we were staggering around so time flew)…And then I didn’t even see the small wooden barrier that rings the park across from our house, hooked my foot under it, and fell on my arm. I twisted my right leg so badly I couldn’t move. It hurt incredibly, so horrible. I scraped my hand a little bit but my leg…So excruciating. Ian helped me get up and I couldn’t weight bear at all. It was so painful I threw up.
The next day I was in a world of hurt. My leg and ankle were non-weight bearing. I had to crawl up and down the stairs. Officially…fucked.
Day 2Day 1
My ankle and foot are swollen still, and my fibula is giving me a LOT of grief. But, I am sort of weight bearing (carefully), so I am hopeful that I will recover…if not quickly, I hope to recover in time. In the meantime, I am bored out of my mind and cursing out, in the following order:
Sadly I had to leave my dear Mr. Oats while I was travelling in Mexico for the past five months. He was left in the very capable and caring hands of my barn friends and his half-leasor, Chris. Unfortunately it immediately went downhill, with a series of health issues for Mr. Oats 😦 He experienced really horrible diarrhea due to his hay (sensitive to high sugar, despite how $$$$ the hay I buy is!), and then refused to eat his meds (he is on Previcox for arthritis, and Prascend for his Cushings disease), and then the worst of all worst things happened: Serious lameness due to a problem with his hoof. More accurately, my amazing barn friends would pick out his feet, and BLOOD would gush out. Needless to say he was in a lot of pain, and lame intermittently.
Of course, the day I got back I rode a barnmate’s horse too!
It was apparently challenging to diagnose as well (as it ended up being the literally perfect shitstorm: My vet was going through serious health issues, and we had a stand-in vet. Very nice but did not know what was going on!). I really did appreciate the thoroughness of the stand-in vet but GOD DAMN was it expensive while I was travelling. I had one month of 7 thousand dollars in vet bills, hay bills, board, car insurance and horse insurance. Almost none of it was from travel? Good christ!!
So, the long story was…It was close to 4 months of drama, drama, drama, drama and oh? More drama! Yay. Shoot me.
Mr. Oats says, “Drama? Me?”
It was immensely stressful and I almost flew back actually. My leasor certainly did NOT sign up for this shenangians and I felt sooo horrible that I was traipsing off in another country enjoying beaches, etc. when everyone was really struggling at home. The stress and guilt ate me alive inside. It was horrible.
To top it off, my fabulous leasor was also going through serious health issues and wound up in the hospital as well. And our barn manager who keeps the whole shitshow running? Her mother passed away as well. So, like…good news all around, right? Shiiiit. It was not good, and I felt very guilty.
I called my regular vet when we were in our last leg of Mexico and he said to just schedule an appointment with him when I got back. He was not concerned- just said as long as there is no swelling coming up in his leg, he’s fine to wait. So we waited a few more weeks (what’s a few more when he’s been off for four months, eh?) and I had an appointment with him on Apr. 14. I got back into town on the Wed. of April and he looked good actually! Much to my amazement!
For months I’d been hearing pretty bad, seriously grim things about his foot/lameness. Words like coffin bone infection, or a hoof tumour (keratoma) were tossed around. It was the worst case of all worst case scenarios pretty much every single day I was gone. Looming over me like the nastiest black cloud, it did colour a lot of my trip with negative emotions, fear, stress and guilt.
I saw that Oats was pretty darned sound, so the day I got back he went for a walk, and then I started riding the next day! Vet appointment came and the vet is known for being a bit of a gloom-and-doomer and he was like nah, this is a puncture wound. Big deep one, would have taken ages to heal and no wonder the horse was lame- it’s super painful! We then had a few weeks of more on-and-off drama, as we struggled to get the hole to close in. I left it open to give his poor chafed heels some healing time, and the second I did that, BOOM! A sliver of hog fuel got jammed in the hole, Oats almost fell to his knees in pain. I jumped off, pulled the splinter out and it gushed blood. I was SO sure this was it, end game due to my stupidity.
He was fine! I booted him though to ride the next day (sound!) and the boot rubbed the everloving shit out of his poor feet…Damned if you do, damned if you don’t eh? He developed really nasty heel abscesses and was foot-dragging lame one day. What a freaking time of it eh?
The next day, he was fine! Hah. WTF horse?
Oh Mr. Oats…we had our first lesson back on Thursday! He was such a gem, I love him and missed him SO MUCH. I now owe a LOT of favours to people, whooo boy. I am just lucky, so lucky, that it turned out ok~
And it has been interesting to get back, that’s for darned sure. Horse drama, teeth drama, more horse drama, my poor legs not loving running back in Canada again, getting locked out of every single password two-factor-authenticator drama and more! Wow!
Thanks world, I did need a reminder about how real life kind of sucks and can be difficult, and that it will encroach heavily on the jet-set travel lifestyle I did become so fond of.
Honestly, I needed to come back. I was dealing with a lot of stress and fear and frustration due to an ongoing problem with Mr. Oats and it was seriously eating at my brain. No way i wanted my dear friends having to manage this for so many, many months- and the fun continues now that I am home 😦
I have been back for two weeks now! It’s crazy. The adventure was crazy. It’s so hard to encapsulate, all of it. How do you tell people about your whole life? I was a different person then.
I’ll try to do some updates, now that I am NOT WORKING whoop whoop! (I have six months left in my sabbatical, which is amazing and kind of insane all at the same time). How do you look at six weeks of your time without your head exploding? I don’t know? But I guess I have time to figure it out.
Went a touch radio silent due to a lot of different factors all colliding at once, unfortunately:
Man, bring me back to this!
Major stress at work/burnout
Bad flareup of my chronic disease, ruinining an entire week of my life again
Oats went lame and I had a total meltdown over it
Gidget had a really bad flare up of her reverse sneezing and went into dog-shock for a few days. It was really hard to see 😦
So yeah…It was a very challenging period of weeks for me, Oats and the family.
Some bright sides: Oats lameness was temporary! He had a small abscess (in the same spot as his 2018 big abscess that summer) and now he is good to go. We even had a working equitation lesson on Sunday and he was a champ though I definitely felt quite rusty.
Work is ok for now and I am counting down the days until I am off on holidays!
My disease is back in remission until the next flare-up, and Gidget has a vet appointment today to figure out our next plan of attack. I don’t really expect that they will have any answers but…We made it over 3 weeks ago when we desperately needed it, so I still am hoping for some kind of solution or treatment for her symptoms.
I guess even through the blackest days, there is still hope?!
Also a bummer, but one I really knew was going to happen: My jump trainer who I have been with for over a decade (?!!) is not travelling to coach us anymore. I totally get it, no issue from me but it’s also a bit sad to see the end of an era.
I’ve reassessed mine and Oats relationships after his serious injury and jumping for competitions just doesn’t seem that worth it anymore? We’ve shown for so many years and it’s not always about ‘higher/faster/stronger’ for me– it’s about enjoying the journey and our relationship these days. I still love horse showing, but it’s not all what it’s cracked up to be, you know?
No more heatwave so things are getting back to normal! I even rode in the field yesterday (and Oats got very excited at the canter and took off with me up a hill bucking…Thanks dude).
We were able to resume our jump lesson on Saturday and we even were able to ride outdoors – not a small feat since the footing is so unstable and deep, I had been avoiding riding out there for Oats’ and my safety, but decided to try it for a few small jumps.
The little tires are cute eh?
We warmed up indoors (and man, Oats was SLUGGY) going kind of nowhere fast, ha. We schooled a few jumps, he had a meltdown at the backdoor again (sigh) and then it was outdoors to try our hand at a few safer fences located in areas where it wasn’t too deep.
Me giving a big and totally unnecessary release…
It was good! I bigtime bungled a few of the fences by grabbing back on Oats, but he’s an old pro and was not really phased ha. He was like, if you stop riding like crap, I’ll go better also! Win-win 🙂
This little line rode pretty nicely when I got my head in the game!
I am heading out for holidays soon too actually- just 2 more days to go….Ah…
Dressage lesson last night! Our trainer noticed my warmup was a bit backed off, with me sitting in the backseat (ha, now where have I heard that before, oh right, in my jump lessons!) and so guess what we did? Get ROLLING at the trot, big trot, bigger trot, and then CANTER! All on a very loose rein. It felt kind of wild to me, a little bit like we were just ripping around, but wouldn’t you know…we had a very lovely, loose through the back canter AND trot. Ok, after the downward transition we kind of bumbled into the trot but then he’d come down and release nicely. He still has that ‘snatch’ at the reins to come down, but he was much more consistent than before.
Just look at this handsome steed!
Kind of blew my mind a little! Sometimes dressage isn’t a tightly-held warmup and trot/canter, eh?? Sometimes it is a little wild!
Oats loved it, and his canter was SO consistent, forward and light over the back. Good boy! Plus he is looking fantastic these days- not so scraggly and gross and scrawny. I’m very glad to see him gain his weight back and his coat is just shining. He doesn’t look 19 right now, turning 20 in October 🙂
It was a very fun ride and reminded me to let go of the control sometimes (duh a horse person with control issues? Say it ain’t so 😉 ) ahahaha.
Plus on Wednesday we went on a hack around the block and while he did require a lot of convincing to get past the new, huge greenhouse (that wasn’t there last time!! Scary!!) that involved some running backwards, he got over it and was a gentleman for the rest of the ride, if a bit edgy/looky. Good pony, and PHEW!! I am a big trail ride chicken, haha so I rely on him to help me out here.
And my legs update- I had my hip tendon worked on last night (THANK GOD it was driving me insane for like 2 months, ugh, so gross…the tugging/irritation was constant) and I am entering my third walk-run of the week today at lunch. Fingers crossed for a recovery- even the physio was stumped about why I keep getting injured when I am in great shape and in general don’t have too many physical issues, other than the obvious hypermobility?!! Ah….
I hate Mother’s Day. Hate it. I do not have a great relationship with my family for a variety of reasons, and also it just…Sucks. It is performative and angsty and I have little tolerance now for the demands ($$$$$) my mother likes to place on us for her birthday, M-Day, Xmas anyways…Just hate it.
So what do you do when you hate that day? Make it better, and make it your own 🙂
We had our own fun day and it did help relieve some of that existential pressure I felt seeing everyone with happier families and sincerity that I do not have. Ian came with me to the barn and helped me do a jump school! I haven’t done one on my own yet since he has recovered from his injury, so it felt pretty big to me, yay! Plus we have to miss our regularly scheduled Tuesday lesson because Oats has a dentist appointment, so I wanted to do a little something on our spare time, to keep sharp.
Oats was a star, a good boy and the bestest pony. Nothing fancy, just hopping over a few fences and calling it a day. Nothing better, I think!
We then took our dog out for a walk to the water, and then swung by Moon Under Water brewery for a beer on the patio. I was FREEZING. Ha. Not patio weather here, basically ever?
We then headed home and had lunch and then went to play some kick-around soccer at the park. We both failed miserably at ball juggling hahaha and it got frustrating so we gave it up and played goalie instead. My husband said he admires the fact that I am not afraid to hammer the ball home from 1 ft away…Not really intentional, I swear it!
It’s a nice way to make what is traditionally a miserable, pressure/stressful day for me even better. Plus it makes you feel happier going into the (extremely busy) work week!
Oats has been a star this week! I was a bit freaked out because after I rode in the outdoor (it is deep and the sand is harder on his aging joints), w/t only, he presented the next day with some bigtime swelling in his injured leg region. EFFFF….Except it’s windpuffs. He is sound, and the swelling lump went down after the ride, basically deflated. Oh Oats!
We’re getting there! (from a jump lesson a few weeks ago when it was actually warm out!) Spring in reverse??
It’s not amazing, but it’s also not a biggie really. He has now presented with them on and off all week, since I basically triggered them by riding in the sand 1 day. Oh well!
Otherwise, we had our jump lesson and it was pretty thrilling for me. We’re still JUST getting back into it, and we jumped…TWO FEET! whee! I swear to god it looked like 3ft to me until I moved the jumps back and realized how…small they really were. Hah. Fooling me for sure. I had adrenaline! I also wore my ‘big boy’ spurs and kind of overused them once and Oats was mightily offended. Sorry dude, he was such a good babysitter for me 🙂 What a sweetie.
And to think, I was freaking out this day because he was going too fast! Hahaha.
Wednesday we walked around the big block with his horse neighbour Mercury. It was very pleasant, and the boys were as good as gold. Yay Oats!
Thursday we had our dressage lesson and I am happy to report that not only does Oats look like he’s gaining his weight back (a struggle!!) but he remembered how to counter-canter!! Amazing! We did some light counter-canter work and he was a STAR! Ok, we did struggle on one rein in particular (going right) but to be honest with how rusty we were, he was fantastic. I had to wrap my brain around it too, I mean it’s been over a year!? Great job Oats, what a superstar 🙂
And he has today off. Well deserved I think! He has also enjoyed over 10 minutes a day of hand grazing on the nice new lush grass, as he is not allowed turnout for a year due to his tendon injury. It’s a really big bummer, but we’re trying to work with what we’ve got at this stage and I absolutely DO NOT want to risk another really serious injury for the old boy.
The adventures of Mr. Oats 