A week of being too close to death...

Last week was not what it was supposed to be...

I had the dentist/chiro out on Tuesday. Good news for Bear and Lola... good news meaning Bear had some stuff clearly out of alignment, so hopefully his issues will go away with chiro care and he won't spend the rest of his life being a clutz. Their teeth looked good, AND the vet tells me Lola is a year YOUNGER than I was told when I bought her. Bonus!

Then we got the old mare... she needed extra sedation and two infected teeth had to be extracted. No fun for anyone. Plus I had volunteered to pay for it, and the extra work cost QUITE a bit extra.

It got so late that I didn't want to take Lola back to boarding that night, and put it off for another night. I was all set to go out on Wednesday, pick her up, tack up at the barn, and have my fiancé get some good video of us. But when I got to the house the old mare was down. She got up after a bit. But she didn't seem right. She was stomping her back legs and backing up. I went down to check on her, and she seemed alright so I thought she may have been stiff. I hooked up the trailer, pulled it down to the driveway, and before I could load Lola, the old mare went down again. Not a good sign.

And so the night began... 8 hours of stress and anxiety, numerous vet phone calls, a dose of bute, an hour of walking, one poop (YEAH!), a dose of banamine, lots of monitoring her laying down to keep her laying quietly and not rolling, one vet's opinion to either get her to an intensive care for all night monitoring or put her to sleep, a frantic call to our regular vet for a second opinion, a midnight ranch call from said vet, lots of oil down her nose, and one last shot of "stuff" to help, and she finally thought about eating a little. I went home relieved that we hadn't had to put her down, but not convinced that she'd make it through the night.

This mare was my mom's 40th birthday present to herself. She always wanted to own a horse, the one she bought at 18 tried to kill her, numerous times. And yet she bought a very hot arab at the age of 4o... She basically became one of the horses that I grew into. We did all sorts of stuff together, and she became my primary horse once my show mare developed terrible arthritis my first year of high school. So I did some trail trials and endurance on my hardy little arab. She was the horse that I could come home to while in college, and jump on bareback with just a halter and canter circles in the pasture. She was a HUGE part in training Bear. She was such a trooper to come out of retirement to pony around the naughty and frisky young thing that he was. We've owned her for 17 years now. She's a huge part of the family. I was a wreck at work the next day, I kept expecting the call... the one telling me to come out quick because the vet's coming back to put her down.

She did make it through the night, but with all the getting up and laying down (and by laying down I really just mean "choosing a place to fall" because she was so weak that night) she somehow hurt her ankle. She's hardly putting weight on it, holding it out in front, and limping terribly. So now that she's pulled through the colic, she's having to have this injury evaluated. I still can't let myself believe she's out of the woods.

So with all this terrible news, I was understandably edgy when I got a voicemail from the barn owner where I keep Lola. I was so relieved that it wasn't another life or death horse emergency that my first reaction was to laugh when I hear that A TREE HAD FALLEN ON MY TRAILER!!!! Well after seeing it, I'm not laughing. Not what I need just when I'm hoping to gear up with a full schedule of lesson, schooling off site, and showing. I can't afford a new trailer. I'm hoping for the best, and sort of planning for the worst. If the repairs cost more than 70% of the value, it's considered a total loss. I'm not sure I can replace it for what I'll get. I can't justify buying a new one now. I'm not ready to lose my horse trailering independence.

The old mare's name is Lacey. I don't think I've ever said her name... it was just such fun to call her the old mare: a background character in the story of Bear. Truth it she has been a huge influence on my riding, and my life. So I think I might take some time to tell her story too.

Vet should be out tomorrow. We'll see what there is to say about the leg.