The west coast got hit with a bit of a storm this last weekend. I hauled north Friday morning in the dark and the rain, loaded up Polly, and headed off to the vet clinic with her trainer. We were a bit early for our late morning appointment, so we waited.. and then we waited some more.. and Polly got to hang out in the trailer for nearly three hours. Good training. No problem; things happen. Pony wasn’t super delighted, but she also wasn’t awful. Mostly she was cranky from not getting breakfast and not getting snacks on the trailer either. We really couldn’t fault her for that one!

And then they were ready to prep. Walked her on in, chill pony was zen about being poked and prodded and clipped again. Oh, this again? Eh, whatever. Vet tech complimented her manners. We watched as the previous horse, also a stifle surgery, wobbled his way from the surgery room to the recovery stall across the hallway. Waited a little more, and then they were ready – trainer and I stepped back into the parking lot and inhaled some much needed lunch while they prepped in the surgery room. Vet came back on out and called us in: we could watch the surgery if we wanted. Awesome!

I wish I had a better summary here, but mostly I stood and absorbed and watched. It’s an odd thing to see your horse upside-down and under anesthesia. Main surgery vet asked a few questions as he talked us through the procedure, and we were able to watch on the monitor and see what he was seeing. Left worse than right, but not by a lot. Clinically it looks like it was both injured at the same time, likely overdid it trying to do something. The usual question is of course how much we’ve been riding.. and less than 30 rides over the last few years isn’t the usual answer. We’ll probably never know what the cause was. Per the notes: “axial tear in the lateral meniscus” on the right, “partial thickness ruptures of the lateral meniscus” on the left. They didn’t seem to think this was a major problem, just worth noting. They finished up and sent us on out.

My expectation was that Polly, too, would sort of wobble her way over, unstable, not really with it. And. Well. Polly walked briskly on over to the recovery stall with only a bit of guidance. LOOK, HAY!

It’s still really odd to me to get compliments about Polly. Eleven years with Fetti left me taking some of her manners for granted. I knew she was fabulous and amazing and how lucky I was, but also didn’t really think about it. Polly’s trainer’s main vet raved about her brain and manners.”This is a horse who was worth doing surgery on.” The vet that did the ultrasound stopped me on the way out to see how it went and offered compliments on her behavior again. I don’t know what I did to end up with a horse who has been foot-perfect for every step of the vet process! (Not stifle-perfect.. but hey, can’t win ’em all.)

We got our rehab instructions, loaded up the pony, and hauled back to her trainer’s barn. We stayed the night there. No sense adding another four-hour haul to the day for either me or Polly, day was plenty long enough already.

Good news is that Polly still looked fabulous the next morning so I drove us on home before the crazy storm kicked in the next day.

Rehab plan is.. well.. handwalk a while, then start a bit of walking under tack, and no turnout til February. Hope for this space to be incredibly boring updates for the next few months. It’s time for less eventful blog posts around here.

Someday, however, I will photo dump, but I still haven’t fixed the issue with wordpress. Soon? Maybe?