Are You Fucking KIDDING ME WITH THIS?!?!

Okay. You guys.

I have alluded to, and in some instances addressed directly, how crappy the month of June was. I felt good that we had a diagnosis and I figured the month of July would start with some healing.

That's what I get for getting my hopes up, I guess.

I figured that today I'd be writing a post about how I'm nervous about Lex's surgery tomorrow (which I definitely am) but how I'd feel better once it's over (I still think this will be at least partially true), but let me tell you about some parts of my day. I'm going to omit the entire saga of my dog issues except to say that my little guy, Eddie, kept me up all night with a horrendous case of diarrhea. I mean, his gut sounds were so loud I couldn't even sleep through them, so that wasn't a good start to things, and he's still sick, poor baby.

In other news, the weather has been apocalyptic lately. The rain has ruined the footing in all the rings in the state and the horses' hooves are not holding up well. The paddocks are mucky messes. I taught a lesson early this morning and had a 90 minute break til my next lesson, so I decided to ride Zephyr.

Public Enemy #1.

He was a good boy while we were riding, but when I turned him out, he STOMPED on my foot and now I think it might be broken. So that really fucking sucks, though I probably won't be able to get it checked out until Thursday, unless I want astronomical ER bills, which I do not. I already have increasingly-astronomical vet bills.

After my second lesson, I got in a fight with my small animal vet's office (a story for another day) and went out to visit Lex. She'd stayed in last night because of the storms, and the farrier thinks her feet are getting too soft, so I wanted to put Keratex on her feet and love on her a little. The terrific girl who works on Tuesdays had turned her out for awhile for me. I brought her in and started to groom her and... her right hock is HUGE. Like a basketball. I called the vet immediately and told her I thought I saw a puncture wound, so it was probably cellulitis, and I started cold hosing. I cold hosed her hock for 40 minutes waiting for the vet, who arrived about 15 minutes before I had to leave for my last lesson of the day. I fervently hoped the lesson would be rained out, but it wasn't. I had to leave ten minutes before the vet was finished. She agreed that it looked like a puncture wound had caused the issue, but we couldn't figure out how the hell she did that in the first place, as the girl who worked today said that she looked like that when she went out (she'd heard Lex was having surgery and assumed it was on that hock so thought nothing of it). It gets more fun, though: Lex at one point whipped her head around and managed to scratch her eye on the cheekpiece of her halter.

SHE GAVE HERSELF ANOTHER CORNEAL ABRASION.

I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

Anyway, now she's in a huge wrap from her stifle to her pastern over a Furazone sweat, so it'll be fun for me to get my horse out of her stall before dark and load her onto a step-up trailer while she can't move her right leg and my right foot is probably broken.

Sorry for the horrible picture. It was dark and storming and I was crying.

I went back out to the barn after my last lesson, and feeding the dogs and grabbing a quick bite myself. I had to take out some hay cubes and put gunk in her eye, because we're back to doing that four times a day. The rain was really unbelievably torrential, which made the whole thing all the more depressing.

Ugh. The depression's getting legit, I have to say. I need something actually good to happen right now, because the hope that things will get better soon isn't enough anymore. There are no guarantees that she'll be okay after the surgery, or ever.

Anyway, do you think I'll be able to talk the vet into doing some x-rays of my foot?