Savour Every Moment

Thank you to everyone who has reached out to offer words of support. It's hard for me to read blogs right now, and I've never been great at responding to comments, but please know that I deeply appreciate each and every one of you.

Spring's wound is healing in leaps and bounds. Now that we've moved to dressing changes every other day, I'm noticing way more progress. If only that was our only issue, we would be rapidly approaching rehab rides.

Alas, the fetlock remains low and her hock has all but straightened out. Sheis starting to get tired of the stall rest routine, and on our outdoor hand grazing adventures she is becoming increasingly difficult. Which, understandable. Outside (even in the cold) is often much more preferable to the confines of her stall. It's now become a two person job to rebandage her leg - someone has to hold one of her other legs up while I apply all 7 layers of bandage because she won't stand for it otherwise. Today there was some odd new swelling on the outside of her bad leg that has the vet puzzled...the signs are all beginning to point one way, and it's not a road that I wish to travel.

At our last appointment we discussed the facts - that if this trajectory continues, she will endure months of stall rest that may or may not result in a horse that is pasture sound on a leg that won't hold up for any significant length of time. We have been giving her time in hopes that we would see signs of healing, a suspensory apparatus strengthening, a better angle and a more favorable prognosis.

Weeks ago I wrote myself this note on my phone. It knocks the breath out of me to read it, but I know, I know, I know that this is the moment that is coming. And I know that I need to do right by my horse, always and no matter what. She has an appointment scheduled at the vet clinic on the 21st of November - an appointment I hope desperately that I will not have to keep. The vet will come out this week to do another assessment, and that will be the moment in which the decision is made.

Some days I'm okay, others I am not. But I am trying. I go to the barn and just sit in Spring's stall, letting her stick her head out and laughing at her antics. Savouring every precious moment that she is here, still relatively happy, and so very alive.

I adore this sweet, silly, lovely, heartbreaking beauty of a horse.