More Drugs

I am still debating whether or not drugs are actually my friend right now. I feel like maybe the fibro drugs are helping a wee bit. Especially now that I am getting over most of the side effects.  I still have some sleep deprivation and some general weakness and shaking, but I can deal.

I have always loved tulips.

I had a recheck appointment with my doctor the other day. I was as calm as could be for me in a doctor's office. Not sure if that is do to he anxiety meds, or that she is just a super cool sassy doctor. She makes the experience feel like I am arguing with one of the girls at work. Random comments and sass galore are being thrown about. She says crap like "I am the only Asian that can't do math" and after asking if my mares were all on the same cycle and me telling her some, but they all turn into hussies and rub themselves on the fence, she proceeded to say "Maybe they learned that from you."

Lady, I don't go rubbing my hoo-ha on fences. Where does she come up with this?

Really woman?

But all jokes aside, she had some lab results for me to look at. I tested positive for Lyme's disease, and also tested positive for ANA (antinuclear antibodies) at 1:320 for both speckled and homogeneous patterns. Lyme's disease is a little rare in the our area, so I wonder where the hell I picked that up and how long I have had it for. Fortunately, it can be treated with antibiotics but may have some lasting joint, skin, heart and CNS effects. (Also unfortunately, while on said prescription, I cannot eat dairy or have prolonged sun exposure. So basically no fun).

As far as the ANA goes, it could be nothing, but it could also be something. Given all of my symptoms and the fact I tested positive for both of those patterns is reason to dig a little deeper. A few different autoimmune disorders can be involved, particularly systemic lupus. So it is off to a rheumatologist for me. But hey, at least the crazy doctor is getting somewhere with me.

This was a naughty horse.

In other news, we finally got our engagement photos done. It was a loooong day/night, and I am glad it is done. Bacon and Pandora were bathed and beautified, despite Bacon getting loose and trying to strike when the clippers were by her ears. Let's just say Blake was not amused, and horse got spankings. We got ready, came back out and aced the crazy one and waited 10 minutes to load. Yep, she blew through the ace real quick. Oh well! We had a nice drive to Adrian, OR where we met with our awesome photographer. We unloaded the horses first, where Bacon about ran over the top of me and Blake. She was really scoring points with him.

Always in the damn water.

I had then realized the neither one of these horses had been in the "wilderness". Eyes were bugging out and they had ants in there pants. The photographer wanted to do a shot with just us and Pandora and asked if Bacon would be ok tied up. Probably not, but whatever. She'll have to learn she can stand there and be alone, and she will do it now. She was still alive when we came back, so that was good. Next was photos with the dogs, where Meaty promptly found the river, and thus was soaking wet for all of the pictures. I asked the photographer if we could get a pick of us on our horses, and she was thrilled. I was too, once I realized that Bacon got her mind back as soon as I was sitting on her.

Hey look! She is growing a topline!

We took a little adventure over by the river and down a trail and had to stand still and pose. And she did great! Maybe I will have a trail horse on my hands? Maybe she will be alright over a cross country course? Who knows! Finally we went back home...and I got to see the pictures today and they are freaking awesome. You will see soon!

Resting is Pretty Much Crap

The girls enjoying some pasture time.

Remember how I was dumb and fell off of Bacon and hurt my arm? Well, I had another brilliant idea. Hop on a racehorse two days later! But damnit, I wanted to ride! And I wanted to ride a racehorse! And I was given the opportunity to ride two different horses. HELLO!!! How could I pass it up?

Felicity was flyin'.

The "new" horse was Proud Bok. A 4 year old brown filly out of Proud Citizen. She is beautiful and sassy, and apparently quite slow and easy on the track. Done deal right? I hopped on her and redheadlins walked us to the track. As soon as she let go, we did a couple of hops (nothing extreme) and finally settled into a nice jog. We were supposed to backtrack for two laps. And it was incredibly windy. She got to work and we had a really nice jog going for about 1/3 of the track. Then she decided to hop some more and try to grab ahold of the bit and turn. And of course, I tried to pull her head back around with the hurt arm.

YOWZA.

We all know you are jealous of Bacon's smile.

Now the pain was not only in my forearm, but all the way up my arm. We got into a nice groove again, and the stupid ass wind blew another huge gust and she got silly again. And again, I had to pull her back with my arm, which felt even more painful and useless the second time. I made the decision to go down the chute and off of the track instead of continuing. I knew I wouldn't be able to hold her with one arm, but I still felt like I failed a very simple task. I tried to fight tears as I hopped off and grabbed my arm in pain. The trainer patted my helmet and told me it was ok. Thank you trainer.

redheadlins is a beast.

My goal was to hop on and ride today at the track, but the others knew better. I need to heal. No point in re-injuring it over and over I guess. Hopefully Saturday or Sunday will be the day. My goal is to be able to work one this year, so fingers crossed! And since I didn't ride Bacon the last couple of days, I hopped on today. She is so fun and fancy. We really need to work on transitions and maintaining a relaxed state, but she is slowly starting to figure it out.

Fancy to the left.

Fancy to the right.

Def need to work on the fancy over jumps...

First Class Flying

Yuma Landing!

So. The last time I fell off a horse (that I can remember) was when Vegas reared and fell on top of me. I kind of had no choice, cuz crazy blonde paint was hitting the ground with me. And so, when I hit the ground today, I was a little surprised. And it was all my fault.

The funnest canter.

The Bacon was being pretty awesome, but with a little extra forward. No biggie. And then I decided to steal my dad's saw horses and fashion the tiniest jump in my oh so small arena. That was bad decision number one. Number two was deciding to jump the pony towards the fence, which leaves one stride before turning. Bacon was rushing it a little bit, and trying to figure out her legs again, as she hasn't jumped since last March. Bad decision number three happened right after the jump. I didn't give her a clear direction as to where to go. She began to go to the right, so I positioned myself, and instead she went to the left. And I kept going right. It was actually quite a graceful landing in the sand, right on my small, very dumb, ass.

Where do I put thy legs?

Somewhere in the middle of that falling though, I did something weird with my left arm. When I went to get back on the mighty mare (who stood right next to me and didn't budge) I noticed that when I went to grab the reins, I had a very sharp pain. Any pushing or pulling or picking up motion caused the mid part of my forearm to hurt like hell. Whoops. But I got back on anyways.

So much cattywompous.

I wanted to test the waters and see if I could still ride with it. It was kind of useless, but I could hold the reins and hold it up. Good enough. Bacon seemed to be worried that I might levitate off of her again, and she went very slow and cautious with me. Good pony! Blake came out, snapped a couple of pics of us hopping over a couple more times, and then we called it quits. I feel so ashamed and embarrassed that this happened. But it could always be way worse.

Smiling.

Also, I got to gallop No Fear Baby on the track again on Wednesday. It was SO MUCH FUN. We had a really nice pace around the track and I couldn't stop smiling. I got a couple of compliments too, which made me feel pretty darn good. I hope this arm pain goes away soon so I can gallop some more!

Even more smiling.

Annnnd still smiling!

The Busiest!

Looking good!

Life has just been truckin' along lately. And that is not a bad thing at all! The nice part is, I got that damn ultrasound over with. Maybe next time they will modify my water intake, for pete's sake. I am little. So is this bladder. Leave it alone.

Fancy footwork on Gigi.

It has been a lot of all work and no play lately, but that changed this weekend. I got a text from Redheadlins on Saturday asking about coming along for adventures. I was all in. We hauled her lovely black mare Diva to board for a week or so at one of the coolest barns around. She promptly got her out and hopped on. Not bad for a greenie OTTB! We were accompanied by the Sprinklerbandit herself and had a good ol' time.

Bacon's little half brother, Paul.

Paul was really tired after his gallop.

Sunday started bright and early at the track. I got to meet the new horses in the barn. They are all so beautiful. Then it was off to the awesome barn to watch Diva and Papa (Courage) jump around. They did awesome! And I even got to take Papa for a few trips around the arena.

Diva says, no big deal.

He was very confused by the weirdo on him, but he just went with it.

Onward, handsome pants!

At the end of the day, it was all about the food. It was a good day.

Can you say muscles!?

Yesterday, I took the Baconator out for a quick ride after a really LONG day at work. I haven't ridden her for about a week, but she was great. Blake came out to snap a few shots, and she had her motor going for sure. Right now, she looks diseased. She is one of those that just drops her fuzz and becomes naked. So some parts are naked, and some parts are hairy patches. I can't wait for her to be sleek!

The Madness

It was all about the birthday madness over here a few days ago. I celebrated the big "25", and yes, I do feel older. I am now closer to 30. Boo!!!

Another form of madness? The concoction of meds I am now on. Holy Moses. I know my doctor said it would take a couple of weeks to get use to these bad boys, but wow. For the first week, it felt like my soul was melting. After the first night of meds, I couldn't really function and had to take the day off. My whole body shook, I was dizzy, couldn't see, was extremely weak and very nauseous. Every day has been some form of that, only lessened. Except for the "not sleeping" part. I take my pills, pass out for a couple of hours, and wake up shaking and flailing. Most nights I get about 4 hours. Yuuuuuuck. It is getting better though, and I hope to be normal this coming week.

Workin' it.

Also, they are making me drink 32 oz of water and hold it for an hour for my ultrasound (NOT PREGNANT RELATED) and I am sorry, but are you freaking kidding me? I am a peeing machine.

But back to the birthday. Most of the day I felt horrible, so it was mostly laying and napping. But the Boy had other plans. He had invited a bunch of our friends over for a dinner/party. He even cooked for the first time ever. This really worried me. We had mountains of pasta everywhere. And all of my friends kept arriving. I didn't know I had so many friends! I received great presents and ate wonderful pie, and had an awesome time. Blaker even got me a new Charles Owen Wellington Pro helmet to show in! I think I need to play dress up in it first though....

Well hello there!

I had two days where I felt up to riding Bacon. The day before, she was wonderful and light and moving comfortably. The next day, Blake took pictures, and she was zoom zoomin' everywhere. I have been working on riding her forward into contact and getting her to lift in the front. This is difficult for me, because as a western rider, we are always looking to get the horse to pretty much avoid contact and run around on a free rein with their head in a "collected" type position. So don't laugh at me. Because I am a noob, but I WILL figure this out.

And I may have purchased an ogilvy pad with my tax return....

Soon to be riding in comfort and style...

Better

Feel so free.

 This made me feel better.

I had planned on fixin' that wild mane today.

This ride made it sink in again. We didn't go too fast. We went pretty slow actually. But I got to work on me, and work with her, and feel her move under me.

Race trainer yelled at me to quit smiling as we galloped past.

But, this is where I am supposed to be this morning, and I am not. And it is frustrating. First of all, Meaty had a lovely episode of diarrhea on Sunday. After my lovely ride on the red filly, we got home and had that nice surprise. I went straight outside to play with my ponies, and Blake immediately came out and grabbed my pitchfork.

"Trade me".

"What do you mean?"

"There's a mess in the house..."

Yeah. There was a mess alright. Three nice big mastiff sized piles. One of which he stepped in and walked all over the house. NOOOOOO.

But I am cute, right?

And so last night, he gave me the signs of a sick dog, and I had lots of trips out of bed to rush his ass outside. So there was that.

Yesterday involved a trip to the doctor for me. I haven't been in over a year, and I have a never ending list of symptoms. I handed this new doctor my list. Complete with side pony tail and pink heels, she looked up from my paper and told me she wasn't superhuman, but she would try to cover as many of these symptoms she could in the first trip.

This was one of the first doctor appointments I have ever enjoyed. She actually listened to me, asked me lots of questions and gave me a thorough examination. She also had a lot of sass, and I could sass her back and that was fun. So far, we are exploring fibromyalgia, addressing my anxiety and gastrointestinal issues in a different way, and doing a bit of bloodwork to look for some autoimmune issues. She saw how horrible my sinuses are, felt the arthritis in my hands, knees, and apparently now elbows, examined my swollen tonsil and talked about my asthma.

Yeah, I am a wreck. It could always be worse though.

It will be nice if I can breath a little better, not have constant abdominal cramping, and not feel painful and weak some days. If just a little of that could get better, that would be absolutely wonderful.

But, instead of enjoying my time on a wonderful red racehorse, I am now lying with my heater blanket next to a smelly dog with an incredibly sore throat and ear (damn wind) wishing I could be better already. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Some Days.

Yeah. These days. Or actually most days. I feel sad, and weak and lost. I don't think I have felt like I have ever fit in anywhere, especially in the horse world.

I always feel like I am struggling. Even if it is just me and my horse. I wish I could remember to just breath and slow it down. I seem to always remember after the fact.

I wish that my Grandpa Bob were still around, as he was my biggest supporter. He never forgot me, cried when I cried, and was elated when I was elated. I wish I had his strength and way of being. Even when he was told he was only to live a couple more days, he still laughed and smiled and pursued.

Why can't I do that?

Everywhere I go, I get laughed at. Whether it be at a pleasure show, a lesson, the racetrack, or with friends. I have always had some fight in me to try and prove everybody wrong. But it seems as though I am losing that fire. I cannot tell if this is a mental thing or a health thing (or both).

If I could be strong, and feel like I fit somewhere, I wonder how much better a person I would be. In biology talk, I am "failing to thrive".

I am lost.