Stages of Rehab
In response to Justine Griffin's recent Heels Down article, "The Many Emotional Stages Of Rehabbing A Horse"
I must agree with Justine that the words “stall rest, followed by months of rehab" are now a bit triggering for me as well! I can relate on a deep level; this article was spot on, and I wanted to give my own insight and story on these emotional stages as well. I did not experience them in this order; in fact, I probably experienced each stage at different points throughout each day during our Seven Months From Hell.
Grief
My rehab journey did not begin with Grief, I actually started with Obsess. After five previous minor injuries that year, there wasn't really too much of a shock factor involved for me when my mare came in from the pasture that morning three-legged lame. For the first week after Harriet's splint bone fracture, I was researching my heart out. It wasn't until I started finding all the horror stories and surgery reports that Obsess started to blur into Grief. Don't forget that this step includes all five of the fun mainstream stages of grief as well!
The biggest visit from Grief occured every morning when I would turn out the other horses in the barn after breakfast, and even with her slow-feeder net holding an entire hay bale, Harriet would proceed to turn around and press her nose to the bars of her stall window, watching all her friends in their paddocks like a dreary prison inmate.
Bargaining*
*I'd like to also add in this emotional stage as one of the substages of grief…!
Bargaining started to hit right around when I had to start finding a myriad of fun new ways to sneak the dozens of tablets of trazodone into Harriet's very small grain portions (pro tip: the answer is a large syringe with hot water to dissolve the tablets, then add jello powder and squirt in the mouth like dewormer). It also manifests when your Devil Child decides to consume the brand new Back On Track wraps your husband got you for Christmas in under 12 hours, even beneath a layer of vet wrap that you thought would be enough to prevent Chewing Crimes (second pro tip: there is never enough vet wrap to prevent Crimes). Once you start to consider blood sacrifice as a plea to your horse to stop removing and ingesting her standing wrap every other day, your fellow boarders start to exhibit signs of concern.
Hope
Thankfully, unlike with soft-tissue injuries, fractures make it very easy to see progress. Hope was probably my first trip to the tack shop for enrichment toys and treats, thinking, "It's okay, this will blow over before we know it" (oh look, there's a little sprinkling of Denial here as well, courtesy of our good friend Grief). I also felt it when Harriet got treated to her various therapeutic modalities, mostly PEMF and massage, to which she was visibly responsive and clearly enjoyed.
We got new xrays, and a fresh supply of meds, every eight weeks, and with most of these visits came a nice tiny pinch of Hope that the meds, walks, stall stripping, more meds, stall toys, full-bale slow-feeder hay nets, leg wraps, and therapies might all possibly be working.
Dread
When we started to introduce indoor arena turnout for the first time, I was an actual mess. During the first two days, I had my friend stay with me while I chewed my nails off watching Harriet doze in the middle of the arena, drunk on half a tube of dormosedan gel. Unfortunately, my dread was warranted, as Harriet refractured her splint bone on the second day of medicated arena turnout, taking off at a full sprint because there were people outside. Not only did this add another few grey hairs, as Justine mentioned, I think it possibly took a few years off my life as well.
Frustration
The Frustration stage snuck up real quick and hit me like a brick wall in the form of stall cleaning; Harriet is quite simply a disgusting mess. I must have atoned for every sin in my life twice over during the seven months spent cleaning Harriet's stall every day (except weekends, I felt that paying my stablehands to give me two days away from the emotional trauma was worth it). I tried over-bedding the stall, under-bedding, flax, shavings, wood pellets, piling everything in her pee corner, concentrating all the bedding into a mound in the center of her stall, you name it--The NightMare would turn anything and everything she was given into a chopped salad of manure and evil. Frustration finally morphed into Acceptance—the great and final substage of Grief—when I resigned myself to completely stripping her stall every other day.
Pure Bliss
The one kernel of peace I found during these treacherous times were our hand walks every other day once we passed the initial eight-week mark. After several very flighty, explosive, and stressful trial runs, we quickly settled into a routine: rewrap the leg, dormosedan gel, walk away and leave her alone for 45 minutes *exactly*, secure the rope halter with an extra long lead rope in case of explosions, then gingerly lead Harriet down the aisle to the indoor arena to walk at least ten circuits before returning to the stall for dinner and a treat.
We'd often walk the perimeter of the arena during another boarder's lesson, or while other riders were warming up or cooling down after a ride. Sometimes I'd move some ground poles out from the jumps to change things up, walking in circles and serpentines across the poles so Harriet could have something to think about. It was during these times when I learned that, even medicated, Harriet is very aware of and receptive to spoken words. I would speak to her softly during all of our walks (occasionally a bit less softly when she would protest that surely, today that one exterior door *is* different and is very scary!), and I could feel her anxiety lessen when she had my voice to focus on. It was pretty therapeutic for us both.
Paranoia
After the refracture, which occured at the twelve-week mark and reset our progress all the way back to uninterrupted stall rest, I became superstitious for the first time in my life. Any Facebook post I made about Harriet doing well would be met with a new complication the next day; saying she seemed to be getting calmer was followed up by an explosive episode; mentioning to my husband that we were finally out of the woods had me waking up the next morning to Harriet cast in her stall. Rather than replying to inquiries with "she's doing okay today", my stablehands and I would just cross our fingers in response. I met with an animal communicator; I watched videos on the effectiveness of different calming herbal ingredients; I bought three different types of therapeutic no-bow wraps; we all knocked on wood every time we discussed the NightMare’s status. The previously-mentioned concern from my boarders probably shifted into full wariness at this point.
I won't even mention how much of an overbearing-horse mom I was when we had to make the move back to Utah from Ontario, which included a five-day shipping journey for Harriet, then 14 weeks out from her second fracture. I bathed her shipping boots in no-chew spray (they still only lasted three days), started her on ulcer guard a week beforehand, and the hauler (bless him) texted me with updates twice a day. Once she arrived, I kept her on stall rest for another month, a recommended precaution after the refracture, but honestly it may have been just to appease the Paranoia.
Cautious Optimism
Transitioning Harriet to turnout in a 20 x40’ outdoor run was a literal breath of fresh air. I kept boots on her for the first week, and probably took a hundred pictures in that time. Her expression and the decline in her murderous behavior eased an incredible load from my shoulders, and in no time at all she was on a regular turnout schedule. Her affectionate personality began to overpower her evil one, and I began to actually start thinking about the future for the first time in half a year, wondering what it would be like once I could finally drag my tack out from retirement.
Love
217 days.
The vet took Harriet's final xray seven months and five days after her initial injury, and after conducting a lameness exam, surprised me with an unforgettable, "Honestly, go ahead and start riding her." I think we threw a little party at home after that. Our transition back to riding was very slow, and still pretty tumultuous (I’ll skip over the part where I fractured a vertebrae in my lower back), but after seven months of close-quarters bonding time, I am so much closer to Harriet than I was before. All of her accomplishments now hold more weight, and all our goals are that much more important to me. It definitely changed both of us in deep ways, and I now do my best to never take her health or soundness for granted.
