have I mentioned that I haven't been riding...AGAIN?

First, if you haven't done so, check out my new contest and send me an entry!

So far I have entries from Alicia, Jessica, Shannon, Mary, Trena, and Karen. If you think you've sent me one and your name is not on this list, leave a comment here - I found one in my spam folder this morning so now I am really nervous that I have missed others.

I recovered from the plague, had a few chill groundwork sessions with Lucy while my lungs battled the 10 degree temps, and Lucy got her feet done last week.

Then, on Wednesday, her RH leg blew up like a fat balloon. At first she was sore, but the discomfort seemed to be very low in the leg. My farrier had warned me that he detected a bit of heat in that foot - she had thrown it and then gone for almost a week with no shoe on it while I waited for him to come out - but said it was most likely a bit of bruising and may turn into an abscess. For this reason, I didn't worry too much about the swelling in her leg because there was no heat at all, just soft and squishy edema, and if she was dealing with an abscess I wasn't going to panic.

I did as much as I could for her before leaving for NY, and when I  was away, Maddy kept me up to speed. Mostly, the news wasn't good (still lame, still swollen, looking sad, etc), and when I got home on Sunday I went straight to the barn, prepared for battle.

Her leg was a bit stocked up but not terrible. I soaked her foot in hot-ish water, hand-walked her, then did a Furazone sweat with standing wraps for the night to try and get the edema down.

On Monday morning, the leg looked a lot better. I stopped by the barn before work and removed the bandages. I had wrapped the whole foot, too, and when I took the cotton dressing off, it smelled horrible. I was like, well that was easy! but I could not find an exit point where the abscess drained. I decided to play it safe, and treated her again Monday night, again hand walking, then icing, then poultice + standing wraps.

The leg looked good this morning when I checked on her. I took the bandages off and while it's not back to normal, it looks better than it did and she is standing on it normally.

I'm thinking that I might just be able to ride, if she's still doing fine and is comfortable, toward the end of the week.

What a pain in the ass!