"Why is the Judge Scratching Her Back All the Time?"

Later today I'm heading to my doctor's office where I'll meet with both him and the representative from the medical company that makes and monitors my nerve stimulator implant. We get to discuss how well this trial has worked for me. Or not. My quality of life was improved so much by the first one I had implanted. This second one needs some "tinkering." Honestly, though, my main goal is to get this body cast of tape and gauze peeled off my skin and untether myself from this black fanny pack. I swear, the danged thing weighs a couple of pounds, including the wad of narrow gray cables that run from the Thing Inside My Back to the Things Inside the Fanny Pack. I hate it. Now I know why horses often nip and chew on their leg bandages. It's just such an annoying nuisance! I tried not to get distracted by this whole, tortuous ordeal while I judged a locally-rated English show this weekend. Here are a couple of photos from yesterday:

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I had my workmate in the judge's booth-- the cute, clever young gal who served as the announcer-- snap this photo of me. Before you gasp and faint at my casual attire, let me assure you that no, this is not my usual style of dress while I'm judging a horse show. But then, what DOES go well with personalized medical equipment? And which accessories complement a hefty fanny pack? My answer? Clothe myself in a baggy horse blouse, stick a ball cap on my head and call it good.

And just so that I'd feel at home the show manager gestured over to the other arena and pointed out that the EMTs were stationed within earshot of me, just in case I should feel the need for yet more medical attention. Very funny.

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As I'd predicted, the weather was quite warm, but the facility was lovely. It has an abundance of grass and leafy shade trees, and I got to sit in a comfy judge's booth, so I didn't suffer. The kids I judged were all properly mounted on reliable horses, and it was nice to observe that, for the most part, they all had consistent coaching and preparation before they went into the show arena. Anything that helps prevent accidents, and bolsters a rider's chances for success, makes my job as a judge all the more pleasant... even if I'm not exactly feeling pleasant.

Surgery Is a Lot Like a Horse Show...

I survived Wednesday's surgical procedure to do a trial of a new lead for my already implanted nerve stimulator device thingy. (See how scientific I've become!). My doctor is experimenting to see if an additional lead will reduce the pain I still have around my shoulder blade.

This is all related to that jumping accident I had almost 3 years ago. Or was it yesterday? Or in another lifetime? Quite honestly, it's all a blur.

After the anesthesia wore off my body discovered that there is yet another entity about the size and shape of angel hair pasta shoved underneath my skin. Therefore Wednesday night was Not Pleasant. Aside from that initial shock, I'm dealing with the constant annoyance of the wall-to-wall tape plastered across my entire back, which conceals a few sutures and the battery that powers the temporarily implanted lead. Ask me how comfortable it is to have my back shellacked with tape and gauze in 95 degree weather. *sigh*

But, being horse crazy and thereby certifiably insane, I saddled up and rode Wally today. My only concern was the fanny pack I'm forced to wear. I didn't want it flopping against the cantle of my western saddle. It's loaded with cell phone-sized gizmos. They're all attached to each other and then to me, via gray cables. I literally cannot "unplug" myself from this fanny pack and its contents. Needless to say, that fanny pack was cinched tightly around my waist while Wally and I were loping around the arena.

Riding did make me feel better. It was a relief to be back in the saddle, even if I'd only been out of the saddle for a day. Truly, there are not many things more traumatic than going into a hospital for surgery, at least not from my point of view. That wall of medicinal odors-- sterile and plastic, so different from manure and sweet hay-- sets off all sorts of alarm bells in my subconscious. I'm not sure how I hold it together, but I do. Perhaps it's because I've tolerated a series of major health problems and multiple surgeries over the last couple of decades. I'm sort of battlefield tested. Yet I still dread that horrible wait from the time the nurse gets the IV line started and the time that I'm actually wheeled into the operating room. It sort of reminds me of entering some high stakes jumping class at a horse show: My adrenaline is racing through my system, I'm psyched up, I'm mentally prepared.... And then the judge takes a potty break or the arena needs to be watered. Everything comes to a grinding halt so that I end up standing at the backgate under a tree, holding the reins of my horse, wondering just how much longer I can tolerate my feet swelling inside my boots before I run screaming from the showgrounds.

Yup, that about explains how I felt when I got to the hospital at 2:00 (as directed) but I didn't actually go into the operating room until 6:30. You know you've spent a long time in the pre-op area when the shift change occurs at the nursing station and the staff begins talking about being paid overtime because of, "that last woman back there in Bay #2."

Too much longer and I was going to bolt from the gurney and gallop out to the parking lot.

But I'm home now with Wally, and that's all that matters.

Godspeed, Sweet Cassie

I didn't ride the most reliable horses when I was growing up. My first horse, an over-sized, scruffy pony named "Honeybee" was a half-broke, ill-mannered sorrel beast. Of course, I loved her. But she dumped me more times than I can remember and was the cause of several concussions and a couple of broken bones. Honeybee was followed by a series of spooky, temperamental, rank and reluctant hunters and jumpers: Bubbles, Sweetie, Casper, Great Pumpkin, Sunny, Emily, Syracuse. I say their names aloud and each of their misbehaviors leap to mind with a pounce and a buck. Sure, they taught me how to ride. But it was a bumpy road to experience.

The rambunctious bunch I rode as a kid and as a teenager made me appreciate a school horse like Cassie even more. She was not a beautiful horse. She was polka-dotted with red freckles and criss-crossed with splashes of white and roan as if she couldn't decide which Appaloosa coat pattern to adopt as her own. Her mane was strawberry blond and her tail (a thick one by Appy standards) was perpetually kinked. When she was frisky, she'd hold it straight out behind her, like a broom.

But she had the purest of hearts. As a school horse, she taught countless kids to ride over the years. In her heyday, she packed little kids around the short stirrup courses at A-rated shows like Indio. She was a show division champion more than once, an odd fit for a bespeckled Appy, although once you saw her jump in fine form and nail every flying lead change, you understood why she raked in the blue ribbons.

That's when I first got to know Cassie. She had been given to Sue by a former client, so when my sister and I began riding with Sue at horse shows, hiring her to serve as our coach in the warm-up rings, we'd see Cassie there. She was usually packing some novice kid or timid adult amateur around the low hunter courses, doing honorable duty for anyone in Sue's barn lacking their own show horse.

Then, by the time I started giving lessons part-time at Sue's, Cassie had semi-retired and taken on the role of School Horse Extraordinaire. When I conducted my summertime horse camps, Cassie was the one horse I could entrust with every little girl who was utterly horse crazy yet utterly clueless about horses. Though she stood a hefty 15.3-hands, Cassie wouldn't hurt anyone. While she'd jump virtually any fence with gusto, she'd then stand in the crossties and allow kindergartners to decorate her with poster paint, feathers and glitter in a "Dress Up the Horse" contest.

It's hard to watch such a horse grow old.

In the last year, Cassie began to show her age. Her arthritis made her too stiff to jump anymore. Eventually she began to have trouble lying down and getting up. One night she injured herself scrambling to her feet, and in a testament to Sue's devotion to the mare, lengthy veterinary care brought her back to soundness. Yet when Cassie went down again last weekend, I knew it was time for Cassie to go to that place where great horses go. And so, at the age of 25 (perhaps a year or two more), Cassie was put down.

I know that my lesson girls will shed a few tears. Before, when Cassie was being rehabilitated, they'd ask me, "Is Cassie going to get better?"

"We'll wait and see," I'd say. And then I'd prepare them for the inevitable, "But Cassie is an old lady..."

This next weekend, when they arrive for their lessons and see that her stall is empty, they will know the answer to Cassie's fate.

Sometimes my friends and I will make off-handed comments that this horse or that, recently deceased, "Went to the Emerald Field." But you know what? I'm not so sure that such an emerald field-- a meadow rich with grass, rimmed by shade trees-- doesn't exist, somewhere, for the horses that have blessed our lives. They deserve as much. Cassie certainly does.

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Olympic Fever? Well, Maybe a Low-Grade Fever

I have discovered that my enthusiasm for the Olympics has dissipated over the past 4 years since the previous Games. I'm sure it's because I am no longer a dedicated, cut-throat competitor in my own little non-Olympic world of horse shows.

When I was competiting on the horse show circuit, I'd sit glued to the TV, watching every medal fest offered during the Olympics. I didn't care whether it was diving, track and field, fencing or beach volleyball. I was thoroughly caught up in the "go for the gold" mindset of each of the participants.

Now? Not so much. My spark of empathy has dimmed. In years past, I identified with the athlete who had to eek out a victory over their closest rival, who struggled to maintain their cool under intense pressure. Oh. And let's not forget those, "Dang, I missed it by this much," moments. I've been there, experienced that, too, in horse shows, so I was crushed and crestfallen right along with them.

With this Olympic Games, I'm more likely to prick up my ears only for the major contests. For example, like most viewers, I'm fascinated with gymnastics, though I haven't been capable of executing so much as a cartwheel since sixth grade. And I admit that my secret pleasure is any and all of the male swimming contests. Let's just say the scenery is nice. (Hey, I'm only human). Then naturally I want to stay on top of the equestrian events. But otherwise I'm lacking any sort of empathetic, long-distance connections to athletes competiting for medals in things like pole vaulting, synchronized swimming and archery. They simply aren't spiking my Olympic fever anymore.

If you're like me and you'd like to, as my friend Sonny would say, "Skip the potatoes and get to the meat," you can keep up with the coverage of the equestrian events by checking the frequent updates on Horse Channel thanks to this section accessed on the home page:
Olympic Equestrian News and Results

Though Horse Channel won't be providing updates on any other Olympic medal competitions-- you'll have to locate the results for kayaking and the shotput elsewhere-- at least you can stay up to date with what's going on with the world's top horses and riders. And isn't that what always makes our temperatures rise?

Things to do Inside when it's Too Hot to Ride

It's simply not decent riding weather. Period. It's too danged hot and, on top of that, there's some kind of tropical depression (thank you, Mexico) affecting our region, so each time I walk outside I'm reminded of my one and only visit to Puerta Vallarta. I believe I wore shorts and a bikini bathing suit top the entire trip, because I really couldn't tell the difference between being wet due to hopping in the ocean, and wet due to an outpouring of sweat.

By the way, a bikini top and shorts aren't really appropriate riding apparel. And don't ask me how I learned this many, many years ago.

While I did ride Topper, my sister's horse, at the proverbial crack o' dawn this morning, I am not planning on riding Wally. I keep tossing him cold carrots out of the refrigerator like they're popsicles, though, and he's inside his covered pen, so he's not suffering.

This lack of riding today led me to invent ways to spend my time, kind of like a rainy day at the barn. Only I have to remain huddled indoors with the air conditioner on. As you can see by the photos below, I became inspired to attack my schnauzer, Betsy, with my set of horse clippers. I figured, what the heck: How much different can it be from clipping a horse? Besides, clipping Betsy myself will save me $55 that would've gone to paying the dog groomer. And that's at least two bales of orchard grass hay for Wally! (See how everything is accounted for in bales of hay these days? It's the new currency for horse owners).

Here is Betsy BEFORE I began wielding my horse clippers like a madwoman. Notice how naively she sits on my kitchen floor, totally trusting in my expertise.

And here she is about 10 minutes later. I have no idea where all that hair came from. But I had to stop clipping because poor Betsy was beginning to resemble one of those old Shetland ponies I sometimes see that have been "body shaved" by an unsupervised child using a rusty pair of dull clippers. Fortunately, Betsy is not a barn dog. She's been afraid of horses her entire life, so she's just a house pet. Which is good, because I'm quite certain Wally would be laughing his head off at her new appearance.

Since I won't allow myself to get bored, I'll have to devise other Things to do Inside when it's Too Hot to Ride. Now that I have the clippers out and warmed up, perhaps I should inspect my husband when he gets home. Hmmm... I wonder if he needs a haircut?

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The Countdown Begins

I'm already getting nervous. A week from today-- next Wednesday-- I'm having surgery to temporarily attach a new lead to my implanted nerve stimulator. If it successfully controls most of the residual pain that I feel after I ride or exercise then I'll go back to the hospital in another few weeks and have it permanently "rigged up."

I wish this were the sort of good nervousness I used to feel about a week before a horse show, but it is not. I'm sort of dreading the surgery, even though compared to some of the medical stuff I've been through it's a cake walk. It's just that I have a certain routine to my horsey life now and I don't want to have it disrupted, even if ultimately I'll benefit from that disruption.

In other words, I just want the pain to magically go away without having to go through the stressful experience of signing into the hospital, wrapping myself up in one of those ridiculous gowns that hide nothing, and hopping onto a gurney. Then there's that dreadful, long, drawn out period of time where the nurse starts the IV and I just lie there, wishing that I was home, trail riding Wally.

And the ultimate irony? In order to have a procedure that will (hopefully) result in less pain, I have to first endure the pain that comes from having the procedure performed.

But, as always, I'll find some humor in the situation. For example, I'm going to judge a horse show the Sunday after this little trip to the operating room. I happen to like judging, and nothing will keep me away from a chance to spend a day around horses and get paid for it! Yet that means I'll be sitting in the summer heat, with wires coming out of my upper back that are connected to a pocket-sized, battery-operated computer.

No, I'm not kidding.

My doctor said, "Don't worry, you can cover it all up with your clothes."

It'll be at least 90 degrees. Precisely how much clothing does he anticipate me wearing that day?

I can feel the sweat collecting underneath the white adhesive medical tape right now, and the stitches and staples snagging on my shirt each time I scribble notes on my score sheet. Yet believe it or not, I can laugh at that scenario. Why? Because it's just further evidence that I am, indeed, horse crazy.

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My Day as a Horse Show Judge

I spent today judging a county-rated hunter and equitation horse show near San Diego. I've worked for this show management team before. They run a very structured yet fun show, with a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. That translates into me being able to wear a polo shirt, nice jeans and loafers while playing the role of Judge.

I decided to bring along my camera to snap a few photos from my perch upstairs in the judge's booth. Don't worry. I didn't miss a single thing while I was taking photos, which explains why I didn't quite succeed in capturing my day the way I planned. It's kind of hard to watch a jumping round, scribble notes on my score sheet and also peer through the viewfinder of my camera. But here's what I got, paired with my captions:

Never mind that I nearly fell backwards down the stairs trying to take this panoramic view from behind my little window seat... But that's my clipboard with my score sheet on the right and the stack of the day's jumping courses on the left. The orange walkie-talkie actually worked really well today. I could hear the backgate guy 100% of the time, which is nice. As a rider entered the arena, he'd tell me her number and which round she was riding. That prevents me from leaning out the two-story window like Rapunzel, craning my neck to determine the rider's number while she zooms past me on her way to a jump. And-- product placement!-- that's my bottle of "Izzie" carbonated fruit juice. I'm trying to go cold turkey on Coca-Cola this summer. A hopeless endeavor, I'm sure, but at least I made it through the horse show without any caffeinated soda.

Ah, there's nothing quite like the melee at the backgate as kids going out of the arena try to grab their ribbons while kids coming in the arena try to jockey for a place on the rail. That's the show manager-- the guy who will pay me at the end of the day-- trying hard not to get trampled. At this moment I'm nervously hoping that if he is indeed maimed, he's still able to put pen to check.

Since this show is aimed at young and novice riders, the show management team offers an assortment of really cute, useful items that appeal to horse crazy girls of ALL AGES. I couldn't help coveting half the stuff: the pony t-shirts, the boot socks with pony motifs, the beaded coin purses with pony faces on them, funky little wristwatches with pony logos on the dial, pony-sized grooming items... Are you getting the idea that I was a little miffed that when I was showing, most of the time I won incredibly useless things like brass keyfobs? Or shot glasses?

No horse show scene would be complete without the catering truck. In my mind it's a cruise ship of culinary calamity on wheels. Regardless of how cordial the people are who operate these things, or how clean they appear to be or how tempting their food tastes or smells, I. Just. Stay. Away. Everyone else on the show staff-- from ring crew to announcer-- made use of their Free Food allowance. I, on the other hand, did not. I always view a judging assignment as the perfect opportunity to fast for the day. Why? Sometime I'll write about my Near Brushes With Death Due to Consuming Horse Show Food. In the meantime, just allow your imagination to ponder that scenario, and I'll keep sipping on my bubbly fruit juice.