Hello, yeah, it's been a while . . .

It isn't as if nothing has happened around here for the past half a year, but you know how it is--once one gets a certain way behind on updating one's blog, it becomes increasingly difficult to just pick up and get going again.

I am a halfhearted blogger, I admit it.  But if that's OK with you, thanks for reading, and I'll make an effort here to get things caught up.

Let's do a very quick timeline since . . . what, was it last spring when Keebler got hurt again? Oh, wait . . . I didn't tell you that?  Oy vey.  SERIOUS catching up needs doing here.

All right, timeline: Keebler hurt again.  More stall rest and rehab.  I decided to buy a new horse.  I *did* buy a new horse.  Pony was pregnant but then she wasn't.  New horse and I got off to a really bad start, but got things sorted out and ended the season on a high note.  New horse is in Florida with my trainer. Big family Christmas.  Various life events.  And the Super Bowl.  Which the Giants won in fine style.  Did I mention we were there?

Ah, the Super Bowl.  Let me start there and maybe I'll work backwards through the horse stuff.

This is how it is: I'm a Giants and Jets fan from forever, and I like to joke that Evan comes by his Giants-fandom naturally.  I went into labor, after all, during the NFC Championship game in 2001 (Giants 41-Vikings 0) and he was born on that auspicious day.  Of course that is the one Super Bowl the Giants LOST, but I haven't yet sorted out the karmic significance of that.  Evan has been fascinated by football since he was an itty bitty baby, and during the Giants' playoff run in 2007-08 he was just kind of figuring out what was what.  Naturally that year was a great one in our house, and he was hooked forever during that playoff season.  He sends birthday cards to Eli Manning.  He sends plays to Tom Coughlin.  He can quote you every statistic you could ever want to know about the Giants.  Basic "lives and breathes" stuff.  That's my boy!  We always talked about going to a Super Bowl "one day", assuming the Giants ever made it back. 

We have an ongoing game we play in restaurants.  Evan blows the paper off his straw and I set up a goal with my hands that he has to aim it through.  I make a large goal, he makes the shot, he gets a quarter or something.  Tiny goal?  Big prize.  His aim is generally poor, and the aerodynamics of straw wrappers are dicey at best.  Last year on his birthday the goal was silver-dollar sized, and he was a good five feet away across a large table.  "What are we shooting for?" he asked, as usual.  "Super Bowl Tickets," I smugly answered.  His eyes got big.  "REALLY?"  "Well, only if the Giants are in it," I countered.  We both laughed.

He made the shot and the rest, as they say, is history.

Almost exactly a year later, we were gasping and palpitating our way through the Giants' crazy season and improbable playoff run, culminating in a jet-lagged and giddy celebration of their NFC Championship--eleven years after the labor-inducing one--and a promise is a promise.  Off I went to StubHub to cough up gigantic sums of money for a trip to the big game that was, thankfully, within driving distance.

StubHub even did a story on my ticket purchase, although the reporter didn't have time to get into the details of the Super Bowl promise or the bet.

So on February 5th, off we went in the early morning towards Indianapolis.  An easy drive, and we were able to find a place to stay, Joseph-and-Mary-like, at the stable of a friend and fellow eventer since there were no rooms at the inn . . . unless you booked four nights at $450 a night!  No thanks, this was a quick trip in and out.  No parties, no steak dinners, no people watching, this was Serious Football Business!

What an experience!  We were able to cruise around Super Bowl Village and do the requisite souvenir shopping and football tossing games, but the stadium soon sucked us in and we found our seats, which were surprisingly good for being way, way up high in the corner of the end zone.  I don't think there are really any bad seats in modern stadiums.  A very partisan crowd with few neutral fans surrounded us, probably half for the Giants and half for the Pats.  Not your typical drunken, obnoxious football fans, though--with tickets at four figures, people were pretty much on their best behavior.

Watching a game live from the upper bowl is a challenge when one's typical habit when things are going badly is to get up and pace back and forth.  This is difficult on a number of levels, so other than the last minute of the fourth quarter, I was stuck in my seat and had no choice but to watch two incredible Tom Brady drives down the field and our nine point lead turn into an eight point deficit.  Evan was on his best behavior but had to fight back a few tears and for a while there I was wondering what I had done . . . a loss in this game, with this much emotional buildup, after all of this planning . . !

"Never give up on these Giants," I reminded my very quiet child as the fourth quarter got underway.  And these Giants didn't let him down.  What a finish!   Evan regained control of his vocal cords and was hollering loudly enough to be heard on TV as the Giants scored their final touchdown.  I did manage to find a way to pace up and down a few of the steps as the clock wound down and the Pats began slinging the ball downfield in desperation.   I get the exact same feeling in moments like this that I get in XC warmup at a show where maybe I'm feeling a little less prepared than I should be: "Why do I do this?  I don't even like football/eventing!"  Nerves do funny things to our inner dialogue.

With a thrilling win and a happy but emotionally and physically exhausted kid in tow, we dragged our way through traffic to the peace and quiet of our beds for the night up in the quiet farm country north of town.  I think I slept maybe an hour, but Evan was unconscious before we left the parking garage and only woke up briefly when I scrubbed the paint and glitter off his face.

It was surreal and fantastic and although I hope the Giants make many more trips back (wouldn't mind the Jets getting their share, too) I think every year wouldn't be enough time for my nerves to recover!  Nevertheless, go Giants . . . but everyone knows that teams never repeat, right?

I took pictures.

Happy Time

Spring has sort of come . . . and gone . . . and is thinking about maybe coming again.  The grass is green and long and I'd cheerfully go out and mow it if only there weren't standing puddles of water everywhere.  Plenty of April showers will hopefully mean nice pasture all year; May flowers are simply a bonus.

Those cute fuzzy babies are big, rambunctious yearlings now, still eating everything in sight and growing well.  Both are going to be heading to their respective homes and futures within the next couple of weeks.  I will miss their baby shenanigans and cute little faces.  But it will be nice to have a barn full of adult horses again.  Two years on broodmare/nursery duty has cured me of the breeding bug temporarily.

Bonnie did just one event last year after a maybe-abscess, maybe-sidebone sort of NQR spell during the spring last year.  She had the "out to grass for three months" cure and has been as sound as a dollar (well, maybe that term is outdated) since.  She went around Beginner Novice like an old veteran last fall--her only outing--and even won the thing.  I was hopeful that the Novice horse I bred would have permanently settled into her destiny as such.  Well, that remains to be seen.  After an uneventful XC school earlier this month, her 1st "real" Horse Trial since 2009 was somewhat of a bust.  Erika made a dressage pony out of her, as always, to score a 30.9 in dressage, and SJ was clean and uneventful, but as she has done from time to time all of her life, Bonnie had a mental "check out" on XC, spooking at the trees, the wind, whatever was handy, and although they got around, it wasn't clean OR pretty and so at age 11 Bonnie is still needing to be ridden like a green horse every now and then.  I'm not really making any excuses for her--she is a horse that likes to work, likes to go to shows and more or less likes XC, but not one that LOVES XC.  Which is a pity, since I do best with one that LOVES it. (who doesn't?)   However, I am still hopeful that we can have some fun together and she is going to an unrecognized Novice in a few weeks and if she redeems herself, the Novice Three Day at the Indiana EA Horse Trial in June.  Maybe steeplechase, no matter how watered-down, will unearth her inner XC machine.  Regardless, she is a fun horse to have and is a dear member of the family.

Speaking of FUN, and XC MACHINES.  Keebler has been working like a trooper for six weeks since getting the final blessing from Dr. Stick.  He will warm up a little stiff now and then, but after a few minutes is happily bouncing along, nice and steady.  All that ACE he needed over the winter?  Gone.  Earplugs for sanity?  Gone.  Cranky faces?  Mostly gone.  He is who he is, after all.  But his ears are up, his eyes are bright, he's not looking for trouble, and is even lazy once in a while.  To what do I credit this change?  Well, probably a lot of things: coming off months of stall rest for one, turnout with some hooligan gelding buddies for another, and he isn't hurting like he was.  But if I look at all the things that happened within the past couple of months, I have to give a lot of credit to the Omeprazole Direct "blue pop rocks" that he has been getting on and off for about the past 6 weeks.  He hasn't been scoped, but I'm pretty sure Keebs has had his share of ulcers or at least gastritis from time to time.  Long story short, he's absolutely thriving on this medication, and although it may seem a little shady to be getting medications from Vanuatu or India, I'm personally satisfied that the product is what it's claimed to be and the price is very competitive with all of the worthless supplements that are out there.

And here's a picture of the happy boy himself from today.  Why is this horse smiling?  Well, for the first time since early July of 2010, the spotted boy got to J-U-M-P!  It was only a 2'3" vertical, and he only did it about eight times, but he did it sound, happily, and with his usual gusto for the "non dressage" stuff.  It's still a long road back to a cross country course, but today's was a big, sound step. 

Progress, progress, and miscellaneous blather

I know I'm supposed to take the challenge and write about something besides horses.  And it's not like I don't have anything else on my mind.  But I allow the horse indulgence free rein (if you'll pardon the pun) because I figure it keeps me sane and humble, whereas I can't quite bring myself to start blogging about philosophy or the sucking quagmire between belief and knowledge (my favorite place to hang out; I quite like quagmires) or how Evan pondered the likelihood (at dinner tonight) that "eating alphabet soup would probably give a nice boost to my vocabulary".  Which is already that of an adult.  Minus the four-letter words.  He's tempted, goodness knows he hears them quite regularly.  And goodness knows I pull no punches and give him accurate definitions of each of them when he asks.  (one of the perks of parenthood)  But I also told him that if he uses bad language in front of people who actually care (meaning, everyone but me and maybe a couple of his uncles) then he'd best be prepared to accept the consequences.  He is averse to punishment, so I think we're safe.  For a while.  If and when he begins swearing like a sailor, I'll have only myself and my own potty mouth to blame.  Oh dear.  Or, rather, oh $@&*#(!!.

Well, I tried.  That was kind of fun.  I shall try to pace myself and save further trackless mental meanderings for later.  Other than to mention that if there is no NFL football next year I am going to mutilate myself.  Two days since the last game and I am counting the days until training camp . . .

What's new?  Well, for a solid month I was doing P90X and it is quite effective and butt-kicking, but ultimately . . . a complete bore.  I effing HATE to exercise for the sake of exercise!  At 45 it's just no longer possible to keep up, however, between the last days of fall and the first days of spring without the normal farm chores to keep me fit.  Since I hate winter only slightly less than I hate exercising, there is no screwing around outside in January looking for extra chores to do.  It's get 'em done, and get back inside to un-freeze.  So something has to take the place of mucking, hauling, digging, currying, riding, shlepping, climbing and all the other stuff between December and April.  Back at it tomorrow, for sure.  Stupid Tony Horton, I'd like to kick him in the nuts.  Maybe I'll turn the volume down and put on Gogol Bordello instead.  That should perk me up! 

I am studying for my Cardiology board recertification.  Which takes place TWO DAYS after our spring vacation.  Yay, I get to haul three books the size of the Yellow Pages with me to the Bahamas and sit there and read them.  Well, the sitting in the Bahamas and reading part is great, but the subject matter, although quite OK in general, is hardly vacation-esque.  Thank goodness I can put some of it on the iPad.  Without which I think I would feel as though half my soul had been amputated, since you were wondering.  I can now let my iPhone out of my sight for short periods of time.

Well hey, four whole paragraphs of that!  Sorry.

OK, the horses. :-)

Keebler is coming along very nicely.  Dr. Stick gets a monthly "video consult" and the latest made him very optimistic.  Keebs can now move along to trotting more and more, no real limit there, just as tolerated.  I didn't ask him about cantering--he popped up dead lame after I sort of let him get away with a 10-second canter a couple of weeks ago (perfectly fine the next day, probably an adhesion) but he's allowed to go out now if he's drugged halfway to oblivion.  Which is how he's spent about every waking moment out of his stall since September, poor guy!  He's handling turnout well (thanks to "vitamin A" which I've been buying by the tub) and acting less foolish the more "horse time" he gets.  Can't wait to get him back to normal Keebler naughtiness instead of boredom-induced Keebler naughtiness.  There IS a difference, and I will welcome the  smarter-than-he-should be horse trying to out-think me over the bored, frustrated one trying to dump me with OPEN ARMS.

Bonnie is doing fine, mostly hanging out and eating with too much work (mine), too little warmth in the atmosphere, and not enough motivation (mine!) to keep her constantly working.  She's doing enough to stay fit, is just an easy horse to pick up again with when the weather improves, and we are aiming for the Novice 3-Day at the IEA Horse Trials in early June, if all goes well.

The weanlings, Oli and Lilly, are eating me out of house and home, destroying my barn and fences, and pestering the poor pony to death.  Status quo--their job is growing and eating and they are excelling at both.  I could do without the broken fence posts, gnawed sills, flung halters/feed pans/buckets/ropes/bags, and disarticulated gates.  I think I've been temporarily cured of the baby-horse bug with these two goofballs around!  Thank goodness they're like grandkids--dearly loved and welcome, but I can send them home when I get tired of them, given the fact that neither one belongs to me! :-)

Back in the saddle . . . a little

Keebler is now three months status post his tendon/bursa surgery, and has survived the period of enforced stall rest pretty darn well, considering.  No longer sore at all, he coped with the boredom and confinement like a trooper for the most part.  Still can't turn him out, but he's gone from 20 minutes walking under saddle to 25-30 minutes with a little bit of trotting here and there.  A few uneven steps, for sure, but his vet is pleased and thinks he's right on track.  Thankfully no hauling back and forth to Lansing for a while, as we just had our first snowfall of the year--about twelve inches--and my brand new trailer (see below!) is up to its axles in snow.

Dr. Stick thinks video updates are just fine, so with my handy dandy Flip video camera, I get to chronicle monthly test-trots, providing Keebler obliges by not dumping me on my head.  He's so very, very . . . happy to have a job again, even if it's mostly walking around the indoor arena and trying to canter when I'm not paying attention.  Which I am, always!  He's going to stay at GLEC for the winter so he can continue to work under saddle.  The babies miss him, sort of.  Well, not really, because he bit them whenever they came within reach.  In fact, they are digging his nice big stall as their nighttime hangout and feeling like their world is back to normal, both of them having been born in there before the Big, Bad, Gelding moved in.

The view is good from up here.

 The babies are growing and shaggy and sweet and eating me out of house and home!  Oliver was gelded this week and handled that about as well as you could expect.  He's going to be a "been there, done that" kind of horse even before he's been anywhere or done anything.  Lilly is BIG and bossy and surprisingly very quiet to handle, considering her mom was a bit . . . challenging.  There is a sweet, easy mare in there, and I hope I can keep her in sight because she's going to be gigantic.  All they're doing right now is eating, being groomed andtied and messed with a little and being babies.  Here they are trying on their winter clothes--so far lots of big-eyed sniffing and test nibbles but neither one has destroyed the other's outfit yet. 

Keebler update, among other things.

This week marks four weeks status-post Keebler's tendon/bursa surgery.  We have had some discussions about keeping all four feet on the ground when out hand-walking, and we have had to add many levels of security to the Dutch doors on the stalls, as they are often mysteriously open in the morning, with a horse OUTSIDE who ought to be INSIDE.  Near as I can tell he hasn't done any foolish stuff, and it looks like the self-turnout actually has helped his demeanor considerably, even though there are now stall guards and clips securing the doors.  Just can't risk a big, dumb, feel-good buck-fest right now.

Stall toys are coming, and today he had a good time playing football with a stale loaf of French bread.  He also got to make mean faces at the vet and fling his vaccination syringe into the bedding.  Twice.  Lord, I will be glad (on so very many levels) when enforced confinement is over!

Soon I will have two weanlings on the place to keep each other company for the winter.  Ollie is driving all the grownup horses NUTS with his silly-boy antics, and badly needs a playmate.  Lilly, the filly that was born here in May, is coming back and spending the winter.  The two of them can torment each other non-stop, giving the adults a little peace and quiet.  As the mother of an only child, I often wish for a sibling for Evan for this very reason!

Speaking of stall toys, the big green ball in this video was once fully inflated.  Until Keebler decided to body slam it, pick it up in his teeth, and throw it out of his stall.  He apparently does not care for big green balls, but Ollie, as you can see, LOVES them.  

Next thing in the horse life is the Honey Run Team Challenge, where Bonnie will hit the "reset" button on her eventing career after a year away, doing the same show where she made her debut as a four-year-old.   That day ended with me on crutches, looking at ACL surgery.  Let's all hope very hard that Bonnie has learned a thing or two in her six years eventing and now realizes that a log on top of a hill does not mean jump the log AND the hill all in one leap!  Crazy Irish.

On the non-equine front, the fall colors are starting their two-week phase of pure gorgeousness, the weather is perfect, the NFL season is in full swing, Evan's digging Rocket football, and generally life is good.  I've figured out how to do audiobooks on my iPhone, and have tackled The Help, Year of Wonders, and Juliet recently.  Next up is a little bit more of a cerebral workout in Teaching Company: Exploring the Roots of Religion.  I loved the first three, and am certain the last one will be great as well.  I just need to find 36 hours to spend in the car! 

Where the heck did I put that lead shank with the CHAIN?

Keebler is officially one week status-post his tendon surgery, and unless you looked at the big, huge bandage on his leg (one more week of THAT) you'd never know it.  He apparently is feeling JUST FINE and our twice-daily walks are . . . thrilling at times.  Turkeys?  LEAP.  Rustling leaves?  BOLT.  Colt trotting up to the fence?  WHEEL AND SNORT.  This is not a spooky horse, he's just looking for stuff to do.  God help me, it is an adventure.  The boy feels GOOD.

He has not taken one single, solitary permitted step other than at the walk, but that hasn't kept him from doing some airs above the ground now and then.  And the leg does not seem to trouble him one bit.  Today's bandage change revealed perfectly clean, dry incisions.  The stitches come out in a week, at which point the bandages can be done away with.

The photo makes his (poor, naked) pastern look puffy, but it's not at all.  Looks fantastic, as a matter of fact.  There are two stitches; I'll be taking those out in a week.  And by the way, I can see him going through lots of aluminum shoes.  They are fantastically light, but durable?  Huh.  Half a dozen trips up and down the driveway at the (reluctant) walk and they're already hacked up and a bit worn.  So he can be a spotted Imelda Marcos, who cares? :-)  Chris keeps telling me that there are MANY types of aluminum and no doubt a better alloy could be devised to allow more durability without adding weight.  He'll get right on that, yup.

Next checkup is October 5th at MSU, at which point some lucky soul (probably me) gets to trot him out.  Should be fun!

Journey to the Center of the Hoof

OK, here is the beginning, at least, of the veterinary saga that has been Keebler's life since July 4th.

Week one:  LAME, suddenly, after having a few days off after the South Farm HT.  Vet happened to be there and blocked the foot and he was sound with the palmar heel block.  He also about fell over when we did hoof testers, so the working diagnosis was bruise or abscess.

Week two:  Soaking, poulticing, soaking, poulticing . . . no improvement.  Pulled the shoe, no sign of bruising or abscess.  Stress level starts to go up a little at this point! 

Week three:  Another exam--this time the heel block left him still completely lame--WTF?!  So we blocked up higher and he went sound.  OK, now what?  X-rays show a big old sidebone, quite a surprise in a small, light, elastic-jointed, easy-moving critter like him, but possibly an issue?

Week four and five:  No improvement, tentative plan is just to see how he comes along.  I'm not much LIKING this plan--too many question marks.

Week six:  Off to Michigan State for another exam.  Still stinking lame, and this time he blocks to the heel again.  Oy vey!  I find it absolutely and completely maddening how the diagnostic process takes place when the patient is non-verbal.  X-rays give a better view of the impressive sidebone, but at this point we're all thinking it's In The Foot.  A bad place for a lameness to come from--lots of moving parts in there.

So we did an MRI of the foot, and there it was--a lesion in the Deep Digital Flexor Tendon just at the "pulley zone" where the tendon runs over the navicular bone.  The navicular bursa is sort of torn open and all the fluid has leaked out.  Here is a picture . . .

So I am FAR from an expert in interpreting MRIs, not to mention my last close examination of hoof anatomy was in 4H Horse Bowl in like 1979, but just above the frog there (the biggest, medium-gray structure on the bottom) is a black structure which is the DDFT.  Over to the right side of that structure, up top, is a tiny little gray indentation--that's the tear in the tendon, which is SMALL.  To the left are two bright, white parallel lines--that is the "healthy" part of the navicular bursa.  (Again, this is an amateur interpretation!)  The part above the little divot/tear in the tendon should look the same, but it's all dark there, indicating the disrupted part of the bursa.

Pretty cool, except when it's a dearly-loved animal that is in your care. 

So the consensus after MUCH discussion with the expert lameness vets at MSU was that Keebler's best shot at future soundness was probably surgical exploration of the area with debridement of any torn tissue, adhesions, loose bodies, etc.   For those of you who like to look at the veterinary literature, a citation of a small review of cases was provided and you can read the abstract of that here.

Basically the options were to give the horse 6-9 months off and see what we had, and that would be the horse to go on with, or do this exploratory surgery in the hopes that it would give him a better chance.  The surgery is not terribly invasive, and Keebs had tolerated the anesthesia for the MRI very well, so his owner gave the go-ahead and the date was set.

Surgery was this past Wednesday, and Keebler did very well.  When I got a post-op call, the vet told me Keebler had just pinned his ears and showed him his spotted rump, busily scarfing down the hay he'd been kept from that morning.  I figured that meant he was behaving normally.  No apparent effect on mood, anyhow!  The actual tendon lesion was not too bad, and the vets were hopeful that they were able to clean things up as well as possible.  Of course he's going to form more adhesions and scar tissue, but this gets him a head start on a proper recovery, with the help of 3-degree wedge shoes to raise his heels and take a little strain off the tendons.  They are aluminum and very light and are the Natural Balance style that I actually like very much--Gwen wore them for the whole time I had her and did beautifully in them.

Here is a picture of the inside of the navicular bursa:

The messy-looking, ragged stuff on the left is adhesions where the bursa used to be.  The part on the right is the normal half.  The instrument you see is 4mm wide, giving you an idea of how small a space this is!

So Keebler came home with his space-age shoes yesterday, and is floating around very comfortably in my very large foaling stall.  It's large enough for him to canter circles in it (I have seen him do so) but so far he is being very sensible.  We have had a few discussions about his daily Gastrogard paste, but it's getting done, and thank GOD there is peppermint-flavored Bute!  Only about another week on pain meds, and stitches come out next week, at which point no more bandages.  He's allowed to walk five minutes three times a day, gradually increasing to an hour twice a day, and that will be a good opportunity for me to make up for the fitness I'VE lost by not riding much for the past two months!

More to come . . .