I brought my horse home, and she fractured her pelvis...

Last October, about four months after we moved into our new home, Annie went lame in her hind left leg. Not three-legged or severely lame, but definitely off. I had the vet out for a lameness evaluation, which ultimately pointed us to discomfort in her hocks. Radiographs revealed arthritis in both, so we decided to see how she did over the winter with Adequan.

Come spring, she still wasn't sound, and my vet came out again. Over the course of a few weeks, we radiographed and ultrasounded almost the entirety of both her hind legs with no answers. We also used radiographs to rule out Kissing Spine. I was certain by now that her lameness was originating from higher up, especially as we noticed her lameness affecting both hind limbs, but I also noticed her frequently resting her hind left leg. She has a history of Lyme disease, so we checked her titers and felt comfortable ruling out a Lyme flare.

I was feeling hopeless, and reached out to Saxon of Actuality Equine to put additional educated hands and eyes on Annie. Saxon is a structural integration (aka Rolfing) wizard for horses whom I knew of, but hadn't met yet. I was super curious about their work, but I never ask my horses to receive a modality that I have not experienced myself, so around this time, I was also working my way through my own Rolfing 10 Series with KaylaAnn of Full Body Connection and couldn't believe the changes it was making on my body. Saxon came to see Annie and agreed that something was going on higher up, that what we were feeling and seeing felt higher up than limb lameness.

Throughout this time, Annie palpated bilaterally sore over her lumbosacral area at varying degrees, so we decided we would try sacroiliac injections as both a diagnostic tool and a potential treatment for her discomfort. SI injections are performed using ultrasound guidance, and thank goodness, because this ended up finally revealing the answer to our questions.

We're not entirely sure how (though we suspect she likely slipped and/or fell), but Annie had fractured her left iliac wing.

She did not present with the typical muscle atrophy that accompanies a majority of these fractures, and her symptoms easily could have been attributed to any number of other injuries, so it's not necessarily a surprise that we didn't find this right away. And before anyone says otherwise, I, in no way, shape, or form, feel like my vets could have caught this sooner, so if you're thinking some sort of thought about that, think again. I am massively grateful for Dr. Kate and Dr. Brady at Large Animal Medical Associates and their kindness and commitment to us. I feel strongly that both Annie and I have been fully seen, heard, and honored by them throughout this whole journey.

Regardless, I felt the ground fall out from under me.

My vets reached out to colleagues and specialists at Ohio State University, who advised additional imaging of Annie's pelvis. Trailering her approximately four hours to either New York or New Hampshire to get a bone scan felt like too big of an ask just to likely be given the same next steps. So, with the support of my vets and Saxon (because collaboration between vets and bodyworkers is cool, y'all), we performed one more ultrasound that confirmed her hip joint was not involved with her injury. That felt like the first bit of good news I had heard in a while, considering this would have greatly reduced the likelihood of a good outcome. Iliac wing fractures without joint involvement generally have a surprisingly good prognosis despite how scary they are. We also used this opportunity to rule out any lumbosacral congenital malformations (Annie is an Appendix QH, so the chances of ECVM/LS malformations were definitely not zero) at Saxon's suggestion.

With the confirmation that Annie's injury was limited to her iliac wing and that we were not fighting any other weird congenital challenges, my vets again spoke with their colleagues at Ohio State to determine our next steps. According to their sports medicine specialist, we were likely looking at at least a one-year recovery from the date of injury. They recommended we pursue shockwave therapy to encourage healing, even this late in the game, and recheck her at the one-year post-injury mark. So that's what we did. We also added in both a Chinese herbal concentrate (Jie Gu San by Jing Tang), which promotes bone healing at Dr. Brady's recommendation, and a custom high-calcium herbal blend from my friend, neighbor, herbalist, and animal communicator, Kelley Robie of Horsetail Herbs, to support her.

In the time between that appointment and her one-year ultrasound, I grappled with what my next steps would be. If she didn't show noticeable improvement at her recheck, I knew that I would need to face the reality of her situation. It broke my heart to feel like I may have brought her home just to put her in the ground. And despite her constant asks to play with me, I felt awful asking her to do anything until I knew what was going on, and then even when I did, I did not want to make anything worse.

This week, I can finally say that all of our work and waiting paid off.

Annie had her recheck ultrasound, which showed significant evidence of healing. We will likely need to recheck her again, and she still is not sound, but she's structurally much better off than she was. My vets are checking in with the sports medicine specialist to determine next steps, but we're optimistic Annie will be at least pasture sound, which is all that matters to me.

Throughout the last year, Annie has remained on 24/7 turnout (which I credit her lack of muscle atrophy to), rolling and lying down to sleep with no trouble, and her spark was fully alive even on the harder days. I know animals feel through the world much differently than we do, but every time I connected with my girl, she assured both me and Kelley when she connected with Annie that she wasn't done here. And so I kept going because of her. I never felt like this was it for us, but I also did not want to be selfish if it actually was.

It's clear now that Annie was right all along. This is not the end of our story.

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I've felt disenchanted with social media since we moved. This saga of pathological whack-a-mole with my heart horse, combined with the state of the world, being blindsided from getting laid off from my job at the end of August thanks to a corporate buyout (oh yea, that happened and I still have feelings about that, but I did just secure an exciting new position that I will be starting next month!), and personal and family medical maladies have left me drained, and if I'm being honest, kind of depressed.

I'm still teaching and tending to my relationship with Bird, but creating social posts feels hard when it used to feel so much easier. There's so much free R+ information out there and somehow not enough at the same time. The algorithm (and okay, fine, life itself in a lot of ways) favors a level of consistency that I'm not feeling called to entertain right now. The overuse of AI to generate content and create human captions feels dystopian and gross. I often miss interacting with y'all here, but creating for quantity over quality and the (very human) comparison creep looms large. 

Long story short, I'm fully owning that I am going to show up on socials when I feel called to, and let it go when I don't.

With all that said, I hope you're well. I hope life is being kind to you. I hope you and your horses are happy and healthy. I hope good things happen to you and for you. I hope you're acting with kindness and generosity as a sacred act of rebellion in the horse world and beyond. I hope you find peace.