Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Background : Z to West Point

So I bought a horse. Now where the hell am I going to put him? I very luckily found a place literally across the street from my parents and I boarded him there. It was the perfect place to work with a youngster. Being a working farm, Z got used to all manner of machinery and noises. There were cows to stare at. There was a huge ring and a smaller round pen for free lunge work. Great owners, great people. I never would have gotten as far with Z without them. I needed someone that had worked with young OTTBs because Z was way younger than what I was comfortable with. Most of 2003 he was busy detoxing, gaining weight, learning how to be a horse again and healing physically and mentally. I almost lost him a few times. He was very head shy, any sudden movements and he would flip his head up and more often than not hit himself and scare himself all over again. But he settled a little bit at a time and under the expert guidance of the barn owners. One of the things you lose when you board a horse rather than taking care of it yourself is the little day to day quirky behaviors. He certainly has a lot of them that I have seen over the years, but no one sees it more, or little nuances in health changes, than the barn staff and the owners. I am forever grateful to all the barns he has been at. I did ride toward the end of 2003 but they were very brief rides. What I did do was take him everywhere on the lunge line, just hand walking. We walked the trails, we walked the roads, we did everything from the ground first before I even got on his back. He was nursing a knee injury and I was still struggling with a painful and unstable shoulder. We really couldn't do much. And without getting all Seabiscuit  mushy movie-ness we rehabbed each other. Mine would eventually need more surgery but I didn't know that. Z did not take the pain away, as he doesn't now, but he does make my life better. I can pull out my little basic training trick and lock the pain away for a time.

So with 2003 ending I took Z to his first show toward the end of the year. I was not expecting much, I just wanted to get him out and about. There was a fun show that we went to as a barn group and he did very well considering the lack of work he had and the time to get ready for it. I don't think we placed in anything but it was a good experience. The youngblood Thoroughbred did not kill me (or anyone else).
 Towards the end of the year Z is starting to slow down! 

Going back to the shoulder, I was at a loss. My arm was still weak, my PT was losing hope and the Army was grumbling. The brace you see in the above picture gave me enough stability that I could ride and I could work. My life revolved around that horse but I loved the military just as much and more importantly it was my paycheck! So I petitioned the military clinic for a second orthopedic opinion and in the beginning of 2004 I got it. I was headed to West Point to see some of the most talented cutting edge surgeons in the Army. 

I remember going down to New York and I think my mom was with me for the visit. I didn't know what to think but after a clean MRI, trigger point injections, nearly a year of intense physical therapy and even a visit to a psychologist, I wanted answers. I got them when the head ortho surgeon flipped the MRI up on the screen and he looked at me and said "I thought you said the MRI was clean". I gave him the report to go with it and he left for a few minutes and then came back in with an associate of his. He pointed to a blurry spot on the MRI and said "This is not clean. Your subscap tendon is up here flapping in the breeze and the other half is mixed in with scar tissue and adhesions. We would like to do surgery immediately." So I was booked in for yet another surgery. Emotions were running high and confused. I was glad I had finally had answers but I was pissed that this went missed for nearly a year while it just got worse and worse. I think I might have had a week to get everything signed at work and then I was back at West Point, back under the knife. 

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