The last few weeks life has been a bit of a shit show. (I also thought I’d try to write a post without swearing but saying crap show just doesn’t cut it). The last few weeks I’ve experienced highs, lows, love, laughs, stress, sadness, disappointment, a bit of despair and also a few moments of joy and peace. The peace and joy moments are fast and fleeting but I’ve been trying to acknowledge and appreciate them.
Last month we were at the World Championship Appaloosa Show and my husband and his little horse did well and we learned a lot. We spent time with friends, made new friends, talked to some legends in the horse world. We spent time with my dad and stepmom who helped a ton during the show. We enjoyed some fun days exploring a couple Texas towns. We made a 4500 mile road trip with horses with no flat tires, no breakdowns. If you’ve read the first post in this blog you’ll know road trips aren’t always awesome for us so for us to return home with some nice trophies and 2 new horses (see prior post saying goodbye to Lotta) was a relief. That relief was short lived and I wonder why I ever think life will go smoothly for more than 3 weeks at a time.
Three days after I got home I flew out of town to help a close family member who came down with a rare but sometimes fatal illness (recovery is expected). This was a strange and stressful situation, dealing with doctors, trying to answer questions, trying to get answers to questions, trying to understand what the hell was going on with the patient, insurance, doctors, etc. Seeing someone you’ve always known as strong and healthy be weak and at times incoherent was extremely sad, exhausting and scary at the same time. On the second day of my being out town my husband calls me in the morning to tell me that someone had ran through our fence and his horse was loose in the neighborhood. Unbeknownst to me at the time the horse was accounted for but I went into a panic thinking the horse was loose somewhere and living next to thousands of acres of BLM land meant the horse could be gone for who knows how long. Luckily the horse was close and by the grace of something he wasn’t hit or hurt. Later that afternoon I get another call from my husband saying my new mare Oakie had been caught in the fence and is badly injured. I choked up as I asked if she was savable. He stated he believed so but he was on way to vet with her. At that point I went out front of the hospital and bawled. I have such high hopes for this mare and was growing to love her in the few days I had had her. Then a little later I was sent pictures of her injuries and I cried some more. I felt awful for my husband who was dealing with all the animals at home and Oakie all by himself along with working extra due to being gone. I also received word another family member was in hospital not feeling well (another recovery expected) but that night it felt like I had the world on my shoulders. I know that’s dramatic and there’s people dealing with much worse things but at that moment I felt like I just couldn’t handle it. But having no choice I did handle it. Maybe not well, but I handled it. We were getting some little bits of positive news at the hospital and the vets said Oakie will make a full recovery but it will take a few months and the care and bandaging with be going on for several weeks. I flew home after a few more days.
The fence Oakie got caught in was the fence my husband I had literally talked about two days before about wanting to replace and until it was replaced we were going to start rotating Oakie and my husbands horse in and out of his horses normal pasture (the one that someone ran into) as it’s built with all horse safe fencing. We were going to start doing that the next day. When Oakie got hurt I had to wonder just why this stuff happens to us. Why can’t life ever seriously just go along without any major stress events for more than a few weeks at a time? I feel tremendous guilt over Oakie. This is a super nice mare who was entrusted to me to care for and this happens just a few days after we get home. I’m super stressed out because the vet bill is high and will get higher and I’m now going through my closet selling clothes, boots and whatever I can think of to help offset costs. I had to cancel our upcoming bucket list trip of going to the National Finals Rodeo in Vegas in December. There’s no way we can afford to go now and Oakie will need daily care and wounds redressed every few days for several more weeks.
However, I can’t stay in a oh woe is me mindset. One, it’s not fair to people who are facing a lot harder issues and two, it’s just not right. My brain is always in full pin ball mode but the last couple weeks it’s been in quadruple score pin ball mode. I have managed to notice something good in all this. There is still good humans in the world. On our road trip we encountered nothing but nice people (except maybe the snotty gal wouldn’t let the horse trailer over on the highway). While at the hospital and the town we were in, we experienced nothing but kindness and compassion. Even travelling home and the flight being delayed, people stayed nice and adult like even when frustrated. I had my great mom and my great friends and (you know who you are) all texting me, offering to help with the vet bill, offering a shoulder, offering to go help Scott with the horses, offering just themselves to me and I can’t express how much I appreciated and needed you.
So, in a world full of a holes and stress I got to receive a lesson in how I have some really awesome people in my life and there’s still really awesome humans out there. The cliche’ stands; If you can be anything, be kind.
Horseshoes and Hormones 