managing... well everything

Yesterday was, well, interesting.  Drove the hour plus to Omaha, the 'big city' nearest to us, to make it there by 9:15 am so we could check in.  First off, I definitely have one of the best husbands out there, as he took the day off work so I didn't have to try and get Cody in the car, get through traffic, and go to my Dr.'s appointment by myself - and I remember that on days like today when he is rushing off to work in such a hurry that he barely says goodbye.  Traffic was the usual down town morning craziness, but we made it by 9... only to find out that the directions they sent ended in the middle of the Medical Center, with no mention of which building we were going to.  Hmm, who would have thought that that pertinent information was located on the SECOND page of the letter telling us what to bring to the appointment and not of the driving directions.  We managed to make it there only 20 minutes late... which of course meant that we had to reschedule for later.

We got lucky, after being a smidge grumpy about the confusion over the directions and that my hubby had taken the day off work to run Cody and me to the med center.   They were able to work me into an afternoon appointment.  SO, what to do for four hours in Omaha with a baby?  Well, I was planning on meeting a new friend that I'd made on Face Book face to face after the appointment, but before and having lunch with her worked out just fine.  Had a nice lunch and good conversation, and got back to the hospital just in time to get signed in and feed the baby in the waiting room - how often do you do that?!  Interesting to say the least.

I'd gone hoping the neurologist would refer me to a vascular surgeon so I could get checked out for CCSVI.  No such luck, but had a really good discussion with her about everything ms, and the latest news.  Kind of disappointing b/c she down played my grandma's recovery as having probably happened if she hadn't changed her diet all around.  CCSVI is still not PROVEN, so you aren't going to get any doctor on the band wagon with you regarding that, but she did point out 2 universities doing studies, in Alabama and at Buffalo, NY, and said that if I was still feeling strongly, to get in a study, rather than go to someone w/out any background in the phenominon.

We also talked about Lyme disease.  She has treated patients with Lyme before, and said that even if I would turn out to have Lyme, I'd treat each separately, the ms and the Lyme.  The key thing was, regarding Lyme, that if I did get a false negative on my western blot test, I wouldn't be getting better taking the current ms drug I'm on (Tysabri).

She made me feel a lot better about being on the Tysabri, with it's PML risk, and said that I am doing the thing she'd have me do if I were a patient of her's with being on the study that's checking Tysabri patients once a year for JC Virus antibodies.  She also said I should be getting my vitamin D levels checked every year.  All in all, I'm confident in my ms specialist/ PhD/APRN and I'll continue seeing her.

On the way back, we got chicken feed from the elevator we moved away from... always liked their stuff better and our chickens always layed better with it.  THEN, panic, we remembered that we had to pick the old mare up from the surgery she'd had that morning!  Here's a current picture of the old girl - she's 23.

She's still skinny, but she's looking better and better all the time... here's what she looked like when she came down this winter:

The reason she's so skinny, is because she's missing a lot of her teeth - 5 have came out of her mouth since I met her 5 years ago... some while the vet floated her teeth!

She can't chew hat or grass, she just balls it up for the most part and it falls out of her mouth.  That's why she was so skinny, she'd been treated like my husband's parents had always treated her - round bale of hay and oats and corn if she needed them.  Now, she eats pelleted alfalfa and Netrena Safe Choice pellets because they dissolve in her mouth.  She was eating Senior feed, either Nutrena or Purina, but they have gotten unbelievably expensive!  Firecracker has been with my husband since she was about six weeks old, bought off her mother (who had sold and the buyer d/n want the foal) at an auction.  He's done all the training on her and has been about the only one to have ridden her, so she's kind of his baby.  She's been breaking out in an abscess about once every winter for the past we don't know how many years.  After Nate and I had gotten married, I'd taken her to my vet to find out why, and he said that she happened to have an abscessed tooth, and that that could possibly have been breaking out her jaw.  He removed that tooth, but that wasn't the cause of the jaw abscessing, b/c it came back about once a year after that.  Now that she's back with us, and being a little more closely watched, I got the vet down here working on why she'd been abscessing.  Bone sequestrum, a piece of dead bone that has become separated during the process of necrosis from normal/sound bone.  It is a complication (sequela) of osteomyelitis. At any rate, I'd taken her, with my Clue for his yearly dental float, the day before - by myself, with Cody.  Firecracker had been operated on sucessfully that morning, and we had to run down, nearly an hour in the opposite direction, to pick her up.

Whew, what a day, 7 month old in tow, MS appointment for me for a second opinion on my treatment, feed for chickens, and mare picked up from the veterinarian's after her surgery... and the funny thing is, it just seems like a normal day now, writing about it. lol


 

Ridng at night... and possibly out of the darkness

I needed a ride to night, I NEEDED to get away.  Between the girl's arguing, not wanting to do what I ask and not being able to do what she says she will do completely (stinks when you need to follow behind your kid to make sure they completed whatever it was they're helping with), and the demands of an infant, I needed out.  So, after Nate got home and we got Cody fed, we ate, and changed and put to the baby to bed, Nate headed out to work in the garage.  Cody's asleep, Jayda's at a ball game with our neighbor, so I headed out to the garage, tell Nate to keep an ear to the house for if Cody should wake up, grab my helmet and head out.

It's almost dark, I probably SHOULD catch Cherokee, who's the only one who's been messed with since February, but the thought blinked through my mind in a split second and I called Clue.  What a doll, he comes from the tree line a 100 feet from the gate (not quickly mind you, but he cam a moseying :-)).  I saddled again on my own, Yay, getting stronger all the time, soon maybe I'll use my rough out again, instead of my light synthetic saddle. lol  Nate worries, so he'd joined us by the time I was getting ready for the final cinch tightening and getting on, and 'helped', but I wouldn't have needed him.

As I rode out with Clue into the south field, I had to laugh to myself.  Last time I'd ridden alone in the dark, it was on Clue, half drunk from riding through Brookings and mooching beers at different houses and the unit volley ball game and rode through the SDSU Cow/Calf unit on the way back to the stable - in the PITCH dark!  He was such a great horse then, and still is now. :-)  He'd even walked through the cows that night, and out along the hwy with cars going by w/out even a flinch.  Same tonight,  He wasn't sure about the dark bushes, but stayed where I put him after I said that we were riding the fence line.  Round bales in the dark are a little scary when they catch the house lights, but not if he gets the signal to eat and he can have a bite of grass in front of them. lol

I'm glad I'd just told Jayda of when I'd had a horse rear up and land on my leg, back b4 HS started, b/c I was insistent on her passing through some fence posts b/c there was no wire on them... didn't even dawn on me then that she'd probably thought I was asking her to go through a fence.  I was going to leave the pasture tonight through where they must have had a gate at one time, but nothing there now, and Clue wasn't gonna have it, probably thought it was a fence, plus, the house lights were probably interrupting his vision too.  Okay, we'll go out where we came in at and go around and go back in here so the light's shining on it and not in your eyes.  Non issue then.  I love having an old 'friend' around, who can sit for months, and still do great when you get a whim.  I didn't push Clue to go through the gate area b/c I guess I've grown up now, and didn't want to make the same mistake twice (btw, the mare who reared up and landed on my leg, was my first concussion and she busted every bone in my right foot in some why/shape/ or form).

I'm not completely strong yet, b/c all I felt up to for untacking was getting the bridle off... or maybe I'm just lazy 'cause of course Nate was back hovering over me and when he asked if I wanted him to get the saddle, I said 'heck yeah'.  I turned Clue out myself though, and had a good cry over the state of things.  I mean, my gawd, how did I get here?!  I used to swing up on his 16hh back bare back with no problem, and now I need help saddling and use a mounting block with him... all I can, and should do is focus on what I can do, and have already 'lost' and gotten back again.  I tacked up on my own, got on and off with out any help (other than the mounting block, lol), and took off and put away the bridle on my own.  Ah yes, caught and turned out by myself.

I'm gonna say it, keeps milling through my mind so maybe if I say it it'll go away, but I have to wonder if I wouldn't have fallen so far back if I hadn't been 'spit at' for being a forward thinker and asking for a way to be sure that I could take a break on the many days I was working 15 hour days.  Probably just comes down to me, and not handling the rejection that came with getting diagnosed with the dammed ms.  Could be part of why I never got hired again after all the interviews, having my confidence in myself and what my abilities now were all blown apart.  ... But it could be, that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. :-)