At the Watering Hole

By Patty Wilber

I have seven horses at the house right now. Penny and Cometa are in a pen.  Christy’s Deets is by himself recovering from a tendon sheath tear, and the remaining four have around half an acre.  When I looked out this afternoon, I saw six of the seven hanging out over the water troughs in a group. Penny is behind the tree so it is hard to see her.

Gossip time at the water hole.

These six know each other well and this was the gossip:

“has she ridden u lately?” said Cometa to Whispering Spirit’s Rip. “she has been riding you the most.”

“no! all she does is feed!” he said

“well, she did brush us yesterday, and the weather was bad the week before,” said Penny, which surprised me because she is not known for her super sunny, forgiving personality.

“she did not even feed us the week before that!  she was gone! mariah fed,” said LT, glancing up to where I was getting the photo.

“she only worked me in the round pen with a bareback pad, this week, but she rode me a few weeks ago, and i even loped!” said Gette. “on my 4th ride.”

“braggy baby,” said Penny (more true to form).

“but it is so strange! she always rides!” said Deets.

I went down to check Gette’s and Cometa’s eyes which have been a little goopy, maybe due to the high winds blowing dust around, and put a little ointment in them.

I told them all that I will be clear to ride next week, but will have to use Christy’s super light (1.8 kg, unrigged) carbon fiber Pandora saddle.  At 21 days post surgery, the repairing collagen fibers at the surgery sites will have regained maximum strength and I can go back to my own saddles and full on riding, as I feel up to it.  I think the horses will have to see it to believe it.

I am really missing riding (except on the super windy days, like Thursday!)

Luna (far right), who belongs to Colleen, is new to the herd, and while she is often in the midst of LT, Gette and Rip, sometimes she still looks like the outsider. She gets along with all of them, but seems to have taken the biggest shine to Rip.

It is always fun watching the herd dynamics!

Breast Cancer, Surgery update.

I had the lumpectomy last Thursday, 3/23.

Earlier MRI results showed no cancer, but surgery was still on the table because there could still be active areas too small for the MRI to detect. I was all into the idea that the post surgery pathology report would support the No Cancer MRI, so I was disappointed to find out there were still areas of active cancer in the scar beds.

However, we know this because those areas were REMOVED and analyzed!  All the margins were clean and all the lymph nodes (SEVEN of them) were clean.  After the surgery, the surgeon said she had removed just two lymph nodes, and it was a fairly small area of tissue, but it turns out there were five other very tiny ones in that sample, which sometimes occurs as a result of chemo.

I don’t have much pain, and I have full range of motion.  I, as mentioned above, will be able to ride at the end of next week and be fully cleared by April 13th.

I have a referral to the radiologist May 5th for radiation, just on the breast area and not the armpit (said the surgeon), since the nodes were clean. In about a month (after healing up) I will be seeing a physical therapist to make sure I keep full range of motion and strength in my arm. I actually don’t think I will need any physical therapy but I will go anyway just to make sure.

I meet with the oncologist next week and will get the scoop on the last (hopefully) round of maintenance chemo.

Making progress, and I am recovering from the Taxol chemo–eyes, skin, nose all feeling better.  And I am stronger! I did not have to pause on the hill on my walk on Tuesday!

Whoop!