Frankenhorse Still Remembers How to Buck

What our days look like — lots of hand grazing. What our days look like — lots of hand grazing.

Happy Hump Day, EN! I wish I could squish you all into Mia’s stall to show you in person just how much the wound has progressed in the past 35 days. Thanks in large part to regular treatments with the SpectraVET Therapeutic Laser unit I’ve been lucky enough to borrow, the open wound has now shrank to about the size of a half dollar.

I was lucky enough to be able to do daily wound care for a full 30 days before my travel schedule for EN called me away. Being away for two days at the WEG Prep Trials at Great Meadow really put into perspective just how fast the healing process is going. When you look at a wound every day, you notice the daily changes, but it’s so much more pronounced after being away for a couple days.

The wound is literally disappearing before our eyes — hopefully you can get a good idea of that in the gallery below. Any guesses as to how soon it will close up? At the rate it’s going, I’m thinking two weeks max. Of course, the muscle is going to be much slower to heal, and I can feel some weak spots along the incision sites.

The good news is my vet, Dr. Wade Wisner of Green Glen Equine Hospital, cleared Mia to start going on short hand walks last week, just one week after clearing her to hand graze. We’re progressing much faster on the timeline to small paddock turnout than I ever could have hoped, and I’m grateful Mia can finally get out to stretch her legs.

Of course, her first hand walk was not without fanfare. I took her in our indoor arena, which is about the size of a 20-by-60 meter dressage arena, to walk a bit, and she desperately wanted to roll. Since she had her shoulder guard on to protect her wound and hadn’t had a good roll outside her stall in nearly 30 days, I caved.

She rolled for about a full minute — this was a gratuitous roll — and then proceeded to get up and take off bucking. The lead rope was out of my hand before I even realized it. I was terrified she was going to start running around the arena, but she bucked to the other side and then proceeded to trot over to the gate and stop — all the while looking very sound.

So I guess she needed to get that out of her system, and, needless to say, she won’t be getting anymore sympathy rolls during our hand walks. In a way, I’m relieved that it happened, as I got to see her trot soundly for the first time since June 25. And it’s comforting to see the injury has not at all broken her spirit; she continues to be content and happy in her stall.

I switched her to the holder for her Uncle Jimmy’s Licky Things, and she’s already pulled it down three times in the last week. This girl LOVES her some Uncle Jimmy’s. The Amazing Grace Treat Dispenser continues to be a total godsend. She is obsessed with this thing, and I’m currently rotating between filling it with three different blends of alfalfa cubes so she doesn’t get bored.

So we’re slowly hand walking — and sometimes bucking, crow hopping and dancing — our way to small paddock turnout. At the rate she’s healing and considering she’s sound at the walk, I’m thinking she’ll definitely get cleared for limited small paddock turnout next month. Until then, thanks for following along and being a part of #teammia.

The Frankenhorse Chronicles:

June 27: How My OTTB Decided to Spend the Summer as Frankenhorse

June 30: The Eventer’s Five Stages of Grief

June 30: Adventures in Catastrophic Wound Care

July 7: Frankenhorse Goes Commando and Other Wound Care Tales

July 10: Christmas Comes Early for Frankenhorse

July 21: Frankenhorse Gets Her First Taste of Freedom

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