It’s a wonderful life

I abandoned the blog because things got too depressing, for a very long time. They still kind of are, but I figured I might jump back in for a few minor updates.

Very chilly Xmas eve morning when we did our rehab SO early!

Oats had his second ultrasound and the vet was not promising about his recovery. That hurt, a lot. But there were silver linings- he trotted sound, and we were grudgingly cleared to begin trot rehab. We are now entering month six of his injury, and week 8 of trot rehab. We got to trot AROUND A CORNER this week! Guys, this is big. Huge even.

It’s still depressing as hell, and every time I let myself feel hope, I regret it.

I am running, and my shoes hurt my arthrits bump on my foot, unfortunately. I have new great shoes courtesy of my husband for Xmas, and I’m looking forward to having that fix it!!

I’ve relied very heavily on my friends and husband as a support network this year, to make sure I don’t find the highest building and jump off of it. They have been so amazing and kind and generous- when I think about how much they have helped me, heard me out, it makes me want to cry! I am truly fortunate to have these kind and generous people in my life. More so than my so called family, anyways!!

Faith in our jump lessons!

And I am taking jump lessons again too! That makes Tuesdays (ok, today, haha) a very long marathon day but you know what? Screw it. You only live once, so LIVE IT FOR ONCE! The trainer is very reasonably priced so I can afford to do that while Oats is laid up and the owner is not charging me a lease fee so even better! The mare is green with mild navicular, so we are limited in height/technical capability, but I am still enjoying the feeling of ‘riding’ and ‘jumping’ after six month of…walking. It’s a soul killer.

So, that’s that. I don’t have a lot to be thankful for, and I mostly mark time to pass. Some days are even ok, or close to good? But they are not great, and I don’t know, during a pandemic that I have to work in, when great will happen ever again.

Argh!! Life!!

Things have actually settled a bit, but for some reason the horse ‘issues’ just seem to keep freaking rolling! In the past month, every single damned week, I am getting texts or phone calls that something has gone wrong. Fortunately most of them are pretty minor or resolved within a week or so (abscess) but DAMN can this stop happening?

Oats drugged out of his mind last Friday for an ‘extra special cleaning’ courtesy of my friend 😉

Ha, my husband said that’s life- you get major issues every week. You are just waiting for a new thing to go wrong this week. I guess it’s true…

This week, it was Oaty’s bridle that was the victim! He has a 1 day a week leasor who takes lessons with my trainer. I got a phone call from his leasor that Oats had charged out of the cross ties when she was bridling him, and ran through his damned bridle AND was hard to catch, to boot.

EFFFFFFFF

This is NOT the first time that has happened- though it’s not really a normal thing for Oats to do, at all. This happened last summer, coincidentally while I was out on a TEAMS deployment for 8 days in Lillooet. So, two bridles busted to hell in the span of a year.

Not enough to think it’s a pattern, but still. I can’t really afford to replace bridles that much…This is number 3. I was pretty steamed. Accidents do happen, and this is random enough but..ya know?

Sheesh.

Luckily for them I have a spare bridle, so I told them to take the bit off the broken bridle, replace it in the new bridle, and use that one. Which is fine.

A palate cleanser- cupcakes with gummy unicorns I made last week when I had a few friends visit (within our appropriate bubbles, safely!)

But damn. I’m just SO OVER IT. Maybe leasing…Isn’t Oats’ thing.

I also had a dressage lesson (after two weeks!!) and it was pretty good, not as ‘fun’ or as ‘flashy’ as my past few, but after two weeks off, I knew I was going to have to take a big step back, ha.

So, I texted the leasor’s mother to pay for my new bridle, see what her schedule is like next week (I offered a few extra practice ride days, and obviously I offered this BEFORE they broke my second bridle….So i’m not thrilled but I also don’t want to renege on this..).

We shall see!

 

 

Living with endometriosis

During a flare-up. Bloating for weeks and it’s terrible.

Me normally, no flare-up.

So yeah, I inadvertently got diagnosed (unofficially) last summer. The extreme pain got too great for me to handle and I was desperate. The fun thing about endometriosis is that you can get it at anytime, at any age apparently. Mine got triggered by having the Mirena IUD for some reason, and then it was a full-on ride to pain town for years. 😦 It does not respond to painkillers, at all. I have burned a hole in my stomach from trying to use ibuprofen with Tylenol to try to function, and it never worked.

On bad days I am vomiting in pain with extreme bloating and discomfort. I have chronic fatigue with terrible back pain with flare-up days and my stomach is in a turmoil with IBS-like symptoms. It’s miserable.

On good days I can function, I am not dizzy and incredibly fatigued, my stomach looks NORMAL and sometimes even *gasp* Good??

Sadly, even with a new medication (Visanne) that I started taking about 5 months ago, I don’t have all good days. It started off terrible- horrible periods that hemorrhaged, awful cramps, bloating, back pain, exhaustion- and then for about 2 blissful months I had nothing! It felt incredible!

And then it immediately relapsed and now I have bad weeks again. 😦 the doctor I am seeing- who is a specialist- said to hang on and it should be getting better, but so far it has NOT gotten better. My bad days aren’t as bad as they were, but they still suck a 100000% worse than those good 2 months I had.

I am starting to wonder if Visanne is enough, or I should start looking at other options, like a surgical intervention. This is a life-altering disease, and causes severe, chronic pain and discomfort. I hate living with it, and it greatly affects my personal quality of life.

Ride it out

So, I had a long weekend- Family Day in fact! THREE whole days off!

One bright side- I made a cake! 

In true good wish/bad wish fashion, the weekend was…Challenging. Not all bad, but not good either. I learned on the weekend that a ton of people are vacating the current boarding stables that I am at (and I get it, no place is perfect), but it’s just a huge bummer for me to see them leave. I will miss them, their cool horses and their awesome jumps!

So, that was a downer. Plus the extreme negativity is just getting to be a huge buzzkill and it is making me not want to be at the barn right now either. UGH!! Can we just chalk this up to everyone else’s drama for once?

Plus I started a new medication for a potential endometriosis diagnosis (unconfirmed but pretty sure) called Visanne and wow…The side effects of it SUCK. Bigtime. Hardcore. I started it last week, and by day 3 had a full blown period complete with hemorrhaging. And I am chronically anemic. By the weekend, I spent a fair amount of time Saturday night at like 3am wracked with extreme nausea and vomiting. I was literally sweating out of my hair, my fingers. UGH. So awful. I was in pain (cramps, thanks to the surprise period that started immediately), and had such horrendous nausea. Man. I also suspect that I can’t eat fried food anymore, because it has made me puke every time lately!

I am still not feeling super great. Weirdly bloated and random cramping. Welcome to my life, isn’t it amazing? Between the side effects of the new medication, and all my friends leaving me, I basically had a crying meltdown on Sat. as well. Greeeatt…

Oats? Oats was so good this weekend. I feel very thankful that among great change, sadness and abandonment that I feel, he is still here, and solid as ever. Love my boy. Plus my husband helped me out a lot, made me not feel so alone this weekend too. We enjoyed running up Mt. Doug (man, my legs were like JELL-O after. Woof!) and shared a free hotdog from a gas station that hilariously I really enjoyed?!

Anyways, I’m kind of over it, and guessing from the long weekend that several of my colleagues had, they also are over it (flooding, food poisoning…I guess we all had the same delightful weekend?!).

At least the weather is nice. I am going to end on that.

Even the weather is against me: A big rant

So, I was ready to write a happy cheerful show report (Oats and I did the Sooke Saddle Club’s Show and Tell on Sunday and had a lovely time!), until it all blew up in my face and now he is dead lame, and I have a big horse show on Saturday, and work is insane, and I am losing perspective and spiralling rapidly. Like, really spiralling.

What happened to my Oats?

I am in a horrendous mood. I went to bed last night because I couldn’t stand the idea of having that day happen to me any more. I woke up feeling angry, pissed off, frustrated, stressed out and terrible. I said to my husband, and my colleagues: I have two modes this week: Asleep or horrible.

So, yeah. That’s how things are. It feels like even the weather is against me, with the World’ s Most Terrible Summer Weather TM happening allllll effing summer. Going swimming in the river, or at Thetis Lake? Not this year LOL!. Its so shitty. I’m pissed. I feel like I’m never going to be happy or reasonable again.

Beware world, I’m walking around with a chip on my shoulder the size of the Empire State Building and I am definitely taking it out on everyone around me. I wish I could sequester myself from everyone, because I know I am not being reasonable, or kind, or anything that should be infected on my (nice, decent people) surrounding me.

Helplessness Blues

Man, physically I have been having a rough week. I ran a great race on Sunday, felt pretty darned happy with it, and then……..Cue a long downslide into just terrible-ness. Ok, so I already know that Saturday was shit-tacular (I still want a do-over, World!!), Sunday was good but presented challenges (talk to my left foot blister that still itches..), and then Monday was pretty good, had a fun ride with my friends…And then boom!

I needed someone to help me this week. Big time. 

Tuesday basically culminated in a few bad things: I haven’t been sleeping, like at all. I have problems with what I call ‘roving insomnia’ that present many challenges for me to get any rest. I get terribly anxious and restless at night, and cannot sit still or sleep. At all. Even after running a half marathon, I WAS TIRED and I couldn’t sleep.

This compounded (I wasn’t recovering) and I was exhausted, just exhausted at the onset of the week. Because I am also an idiot, I kept going…Riding, running, working. And then on Tuesday I was pretty busy after work (cleaning cages, cleaning bathrooms, walking my dog, etc), and I started feeling strange.

Cue another night of no sleep… And mystery cramps that were ripping my uterus apart. It. was. nightmarish. I was sweating, writhing in pain and so bloated that my ribs hurt. I couldn’t sleep, was in a tremendous amount of pain, and I was taking too much ibuprofen (by the handful, basically, in a desperate bid to get on top of the incredible pain. Newsflash- it was too much, and it DIDN’T TOUCH the pain). I was up all night in a real sorry state.

Oh and I checked the bottle of extra-strength ibuprofen that I was downing by the handful the next day and you’re supposed to take… 3 per 24 hours. THREE? Anyways, the road to ruin was started.

I ran to work, felt so fucking out of it I couldn’t type. I was nauseous and still having cramps and pain (I have a Mirena IUD which I am planning on getting removed DUE TO THIS – wtf is going on? I have not had such horrible PMS symptoms in 10 years????)… I took more handfuls of pain medication (yikes, a bad idea. Likely came close to causing an ulcer yesterday, but I couldn’t escape the pain)…

Anyway, went on a run at lunch and immediately felt like I was going to faint, or puke or both. I had terrible nausea, cold sweat, dizzy and cramps. It was just awful. I left, and crawled home and lay on the couch to try and rest off of what was rapidly becoming a terrible day and a bad decision all around.

Honestly? I think my crashing sickness was due to a few factors:

• Not sleeping- I was rapidly losing control of my sanity. Rapidly. After running a half-marathon, not healing the way I should be, and not getting any rest at all.
• Horrendous cramps, also causing my not-sleeping and my overdosing on x-tra strength medication. I was beyond desperate.
• Overdosing on pain medication- I wasn’t getting ANY relief, despite the fact that I have the Mirena IUD and this SHOULDN’T be happening in the first place?! All I got was terrible nausea.
• I got my blood iron levels checked and they’re on the low side of normal (Ferritin was 35, which preferably it would be at 50+…) and keep in mind that is with supplementing with iron. Hmmmmmmm.

I also bought myself a CBD+THC spray for insomnia, and I was anxious to try it out- and you know what? I think I finally slept for half a night for the first time in months! It’s no miracle drug, but I was so, so desperate to sleep. I think I was on the verge of a psychotic break. And I finally got SOME sleep. Yeah! And for the record, I have tried melatonin (doesn’t work) and over-the-counter sleep aids (and Benadryl) which do not work on me. Some of them make me actively crazy and restless.

The CBD+THC is no miracle drug again, but I think through some trial and error, I could fine- tune how much I need to allow my body to relax enough to sleep. 🙂

 

Bandwagonesque

Ha, I picked this title due to a certain situation that is playing out at my barn. But, I’m a lurker and staying out of it!! 🙂

Last winter was very snowy. Right now? Freaking cold.

Riding this week- rode Sunday after my race and Oats was good, it was cold though. We worked on some canter, off the rail to focus more on straightness.

Monday– Trying out some movements from our upcoming dressage tests, Training 2 & 3. Moderate success, noting some issues popping up through the contact, and transitions. Also our stretchy trot is not a thing. Hm…

Tuesday– FROZEN. So horrible. I was in so much pain from the cold in the arena that I wanted to get off and go home. I was NOT enjoying it. Oats was good, but just..ARGH. It was really awful. We worked on transitions. Lots of transitions. Walk-trot. Trot-halt. Halt-trot. Sitting trot-posting trot. Halt- walk.

But man, oh it was cold.

Kind of hating the cold this week. Running to work this AM felt like pure torture and I never even warmed up during the 4k it took to run. And I WAS bundled up! ARGHHH. And, chiefly due to the drastic weather change and the hard-run 8k, my throat hurts on and off, and I have had sinus pain all week.

Getting sick? God, I hope not!!! Everyone at my work is sick and I am desperately trying to stave that off.

Frozen, freezing, froze

UGH. Mostly just a rant about how terrible the weather was this weekend, AND last night. FREEZING.

Last week.

I don’t really want to ride, or run, at all in the deep-freeze. Plus we live on the island and it’s never supposed to get this cold?!! What gives. I rode grudgingly on Saturday and it was pretty miserable. Oats was good but I was just…stiff and cold. Went for a run on Saturday after riding and almost died. It was HORRIBLE. I was almost crying it was so miserable. Freezing, rain, toes frozen, face windburned and chapped…UGH.

Practically this week. wow. 

Sunday was marginally better and I had a fun ride where I got to jump some small jumps with a ground crew (my friend Sarah’s friend Christi was visiting and set for us very nicely) and then she rode Sarah’s horse too! A fun day all around. And I wasn’t bitterly frozen.

I then hoofed it to some hills and ran a decent hill loop (and then wondered why my legs feel so tired today…) and called it quits on exercise. Husband and I ended the evening with a footbath each, with foot soak and peppermint foot lotion. Ha, the things that make you happy in the winter.

Monday I had an equine counselling session, and I rode briefly beforehand. It was FREEZING. I caught my breath going down to the indoor it was so awful. My eyes were watering just walking around. Terrible. I toughed it out for a bit, but just couldn’t warm up. Probably the coldest night I have felt of all the deep freeze nights last week. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

And today? Ran to work and it was pleasantly chilly but I was overdressed (afraid of freezing like Saturday/yesterday) and had to take my hat off I was sweating so much. Harumph.

Tuesday dressage, and no Thur jump lesson this week.

VIRA Comox Half Marathon Race Recap!

I’d like to bring in a word here that everyone knows but probably didn’t know the original meaning until I heard it on iZombie last night…Egregious.

Shockingly bad, horrible, glaring.

But apparently it also used to mean awesome but terrible at the same time. So, going with that, I am going to use that term as it was originally planned to describe mine and my husband’s first half marathon of the season.

The awesome: Knocked a good 10 minutes off my personal time for the half marathon. Great eh?!! Why also bad?? (It was 1:45:42 gun and 1:45:37 net).

The bad: My husband did this while racing with a knee injury (terrible idea!) and was basically “Terry Foxing” it around the course the whole time. Eeek…It started when we were at 4k and we were feeling really good, and then he said his knee was going. But then he kept going?!! I kept saying he should step off the course, and why didn’t he, but then he said I would probably keep going too…So yeah he did it, but it wasn’t wonderful.

Also kind of bad: At the risk of too TMI- I have terrible stomach issues before racing, and thus went into this race feeling way under-fueled. I can get away with this for shorter distances but for the half it just about killed me. Such a bad idea, and I need to get it under control before my next race. I’ve let it go on wayyyy too long.

The race: The weather was actually super nice, chilly but not freezing, and most importantly– NOT raining! That would have put the literal damper on our already somewhat difficult day (pun intended).

It’s not a super hard course, but it does have a few hills that make life kind of miserable. They feel ok on the way up, then at the turnaround you start really questioning your will to live, and then you riiiiiide down the hills, feeling great! And then back up the smallest hill, and you die.

The track out was awesome. I was feeling good (despite actually being hungry going in due to my angry stomach), we were well on pace, ahead of it actually, turns out we would need that buffer zone, and rolling.

4k and my husband’s knee went funny, and up to the turnaround, 10k, started losing a bit of our happy place. We got passed a LOT on the way back (WTF??) which is not something I am used to having, and boy when you are suffering, it does crush the spirit more than a little!

We were kind of limping along, I was determinedly staring at the yellow line on the road in some sort of pain-zen state…We lost time a lot, and at 18k I definitely hit the wall. It felt like I was running uphill through a pool.

I know now that I was under-fueled and super dehydrated. I had sweat out EVERYTHING and was really struggling. My husband was not doing better, as he was behind me limping it out. I think if I see the photos I will laugh and cry about them! Man!

I managed to weakly ‘sprint’ past someone at the finish because I needed something to win on, and then immediately felt like I was going to faint. My vision started greying and getting blurry and I was staggering around shouting for my husband. Yuck, even thinking about it today makes me feel kind of sick.

That, friends, is how NOT to run a half-marathon. This is my weakest distance (next to the 5k) and it really showed me how unprepared I was, even though I felt like I was good for it. NOPE!

The food after was soooo good, lots of it, and the volunteers were great! Yummy chili, cheese, buns, cookies, chocolate milk and yogurt. I couldn’t eat a lot, felt pretty gross for awhile, but did manage to eat the yummy chili!

And that race taught me something very valuable- don’t get cocky. Respect the distance.

Persistence

So, this comes up often in my life:

And yesterday, Oats and I did not have a harmonious warm up to our dressage lesson. He was being an absolute dingbat in the outdoor ring, spooky, snorty, sucking back, getting light in front and stalling out and wanting to run backwards.

It pissed me off mightily and I was near tears, frustrated and angry. WHAT about this summer is making him act like an idiot? Seriously, I have not had this level of terrible rides with him in like, forever. And now he’s spooky and a twit.

Summer Oats

I was also still a bit sore, though not bad, from getting dumped – yes in the outdoor- from his big ‘spin and spook’ maneuver on Saturday so I was NOT in a forgiving mood.

I gave up, huffed and fluffed and we had our dressage lesson in the indoor. He was a bit feisty in the indoor, and made me ‘work for it’ to get to the real meat of the lesson, but you know what? That connection that I seriously was missing started coming back.

I even said it felt like before, when I lose all my ‘power’ in the outdoor ring, that I don’t feel like I have any connection with him. I also know that when I am frustrated and mad at him, I do not give him a fair ride, or the benefit of the doubt. So, it’s a partners problem…

But anyways, the lesson went quite well. That doesn’t mean there weren’t bumps in the road, but you know what? We persevere, and I did get some great, honest work from Oats. I finally felt like our connection was coming back! He was over his back, listening to me and really giving to me. I like those rides, and sometimes give too much power to my shitty bad and frustrating rides. Now, to gain some perspective…

I was quite pleased with his effort and the level of work he is starting to give me. He might make a dressage pony yet!

Is it true, we only get the horse we deserve?