Vet Visit

It's taken me a few days to write this, because.. it just freakin' sucks. I've had to process... and I've had to focus really hard on trusting God and putting my faith in Him. And maybe I'm being too optimistic, but... I don't know what else to do... so here goes..

I took Dan back to the vet for another recheck. Because... something isn't right. And maybe it's unrelated to the hitchyness/rein lameness I'm feeling and have felt for awhile. But... jumping Dan is not his normal self. Even Dan is not his normal self. The other day when I tried to take him for a gallop and he really didn't even want to canter. When he is adding strides in the lines. When he is struggling to get through grids. When he is telling me no over bigger fences. When he is not jumping out of stride. And yes.. I thought it was confidence or training issues... but lately, I've decided it's not. I'm not scared anymore. Yes, I'm nervous, and yes it's hard to be confident when he's not taking me to the fences, but.. I'm not riding him backwards anymore. Something isn't right. And now, he's not breathing as well as he used to. He's much more labored with not a lot of work. So... is that pain? Oh, and... his topline is looking rough lately, as is his butt muscling. And maybe it's because I had upped his work and he was dropping weight... but maybe it's because something hurts so he's not using himself properly. So.. I had finally had enough and decided to get to the bottom of it. Because.. if there was nothing going on... then maybe I did need to send him to a trainer. But there was NO way I was going to send him to a trainer without making damn sure there wasn't any pain issues. 

So... we went to see Dr. Laura. We got there and they looked him over. He's a little sore in his back still. They agreed that while he looked SUPER and better than before at first glance.. his topline looked a little crappy and his lumbars and LS area and gluteals looked a little weak. We watched him jog and did some flexions. Nothing too horribly exciting. He was a little positive to the right hind, a little more positive to the left SI joint, and a little positive on the right front I think. So then we lunged him. He kept counterflexed while tracking right and his haunches kept falling in. But again.. maybe 2/5 lame on the right hind,, and 1/5 on the left hind. Same the other directions. So.. then I got on and rode him. And honestly, he felt more lame to me. As in, more lame than he felt yesterday or even most of the time before. They thought he looked way sounder than he did on the lunge. So I hopped him over a cross rail. It was a little hard to evaluate as when we tracked to the right, he had a longer approach and jumped it fairly nice and even took one flyer. Tracking from the left, he had a shorter approach and kept chipping and even groaning as he went over. So we talked. They agreed that he was breathing harder than they expected and he even had some frothy nasal discharge. So we discussed options. They felt like a bone scan wouldn't be a bad idea since it wasn't a glaringly obvious lameness issue. However, no one was available because of the virus. Although perhaps Aiken Equine could do one. So she messaged them to see. In the meantime, we talked about doing a BAL for his lungs. We decided to go ahead and re-xray his stifles because I was a little worried about the cyst on the left stifle. We also figured maybe we could inject his stifles again and see how that made him feel until we could get in for a bone scan. 

So we started with xrays of the stifles. The left one looked great and that cyst thing was really hard to find... maybe still there but definitely not worse and maybe even better. So yay for that. Then they did the right stifle. It took awhile and they were struggling to get the bones lined up right. The right stifle showed narrowing of the joint space, an osteophyte and scerlosis of the intra condylar space. Sigh... That's bad. That's especially bad since the images 10 months ago didn't look that bad. And in those past 10 months we've done two rounds of IRAP. :( So then she suggested we do an ultrasound. So we did. And it's bad too. It showed bulging on the medial mensiscus and possible disruption of the meniscal ligament and possible disruption of the lateral ligament too. That's bad. So bad. 

So basically... the plan is to send the images out for consult and see what happens. In the meantime we rest him up and wait. However, we decided that stall rest was not really an option and the best bet was letting him stay out and hoping he didn't go bonkers and fling himself around. We also decided that perhaps a 30-45 min walk a few times a week, on flat ground, wouldn't be the end of the world. It may help keep him sane and keep him from being bonkers in turn out, and in theory, keeping his muscles in shape should help support the joint. I'm also lasering him daily and using the bemer daily. 

So... I'm heartbroken. I'm terrified! I don't know if I'm even going to get to do more than just walk on the trails with my boy anymore. I don't know if he's doing to destabilize and I'm going to have to make a quality of life decision sooner rather than later. The prognosis all sounds pretty grim. With meniscal injuries the return to current level of work with arthroscopy surgery is about 50-60%. But if you add in degenerative arthritic changes, that goes down to like 35%. BUT... that is also with significant lameness. So it's hard to say with Dan. As really.. he's not significantly lame. I really would like to think that there is a chance he can go back to jumping, even if we don't get to do the prelim 3 day, but realistically, I'll be lucky if I can get my bronze on him. And I feel so awful for continuing to ask him to jump, for basically a year... the whole time he's been telling me that it is hard. And then I even put someone else on him... and he got in trouble for stopping. It breaks my heart. I feel awful. And I hate that he never got a chance to really shine. I go back to how amazing he felt at Jumping Branch, and... I think we could have gone far. UGH... this freaking sucks. So bad... And he's not even 9 years old yet! :(