Progress Check

Today was Lucy's appointment with the vet to check the progress of her healing. I have had many dreams of riding her on the beach and through the woods leading up to today, and I felt very nervous about this appointment. I could have done shockwave or other therapies and I chose not to, mostly for financial reasons. What if I made the wrong choice? What if I should have kept her on stall rest? I just hoped she had improved and that maybe I could ride her soon.

I called the vet at 8:30am to see when they would be out, and the receptionist said that she didn't have the schedule finalized yet, and needed to call me back. Ok, no problem! I went back to work and waited for the call. Two hours passed, which is an exceptionally long time, and then she finally called back. She said that the ultrasound machine was not working correctly, and they couldn't come out today. I was so gutted, I cannot even tell you. I had persuaded my boss to let me work from home today, I had gotten up at the crack of dawn to start work early in case they had to come out first thing this morning, and I had waited three months and spent over $4,000 to get to this point. Not to mention I made this appointment almost a month ago, and the only piece of equipment they needed was the one thing that wasn't working! I was so overwhelmed and upset, but I remained totally polite and said I understood, and agreed to reschedule the appointment. The first date that worked for both of us was two weeks away. I hung up the phone and felt sorry for myself. Did I really have to wait another two weeks? Ugh!

A few minutes later they called back, and said they had been able to swap the machine out with another vet's machine, and they could come out that day! What a relief! After that, I felt shaky and even more nervous for the appointment.

When the vet called to say he was on his way, I rushed over to the barn, brushed her off, and then waited. He first sedated her, and since she was in lala land and he had the ultrasound machine, he checked her ovaries. They are both 100% normal; the one on the right has a huge follicle (so she is in heat right now) and I am pretty sure that we can put that entire thing to rest. Then he clipped her along her spine (bummer) and his assistant cleaned her off really well with alcohol pads so that no dirt got into the ultrasound probe.

getting clipped

They applied gel and then started the ultrasound. As he went along the spine I could see the tissue between the spinus processes: normal, normal, normal, not normal.....ahhh crap, she wasn't healed. He confirmed that he could see the injury, but from the report from Tuft's, it seemed to have healed significantly. It had originally spanned across three vertebra, and now barely stretched along one. So that is great news. However, she will need more time off before I can ride. She is allowed to start lunging, 5 minutes a day and working up from there. She cannot be silly or kick out on the lunge line, and he advised using a Pessoa system or side reins. If she is too hot or crazy, I can give her Ace.

I took her out today on the lunge line, even though I didn't have a Pessoa system, and had her trot around. I didn't give her any Ace because she seemed very chill. She was awesome, and behaved perfectly. She stretched down and trotted out nicely, not getting riled up in the least.

So I am happy she's progressing, but sad that we still have a long time ahead of us before I can ride.

Appropriately, I got the reimbursement cheque back from the insurance today. They covered $3700 of the bill, so yes, insurance is totally worth it. :)