There is a photograph of me sitting on Patsy in my parents' garden, looking out over the pond, and if you did not know the story behind it you would think it was the most ordinary thing in the world. A woman on her horse on a summer evening. But I had waited the better part of nine months for that ordinary little moment, and when it finally came I could hardly breathe for the size of it.
Nine Months Is A Long Time To Wait
If you read Patsy's first rehab diary, you will know she has been off since last autumn, and that the two of us have spent most of this year on the ground rather than in the saddle. What nobody quite warns you about is what all that time does to your own head, never mind your horse's body. Truth be told, for the longest time I could not let myself believe she would ever be fit to ride again. I would not even entertain the thought, for fear of the disappointment and the heartbreak if it never came. So when it finally began to feel possible, I had built the idea of getting back on into something enormous. I had turned it over so many times, at two in the morning, on the drive to the yard, in the queue at the supermarket, that by the time it actually came around I was half convinced I had forgotten how to do it at all.
So we kept it tiny. A few minutes at a walk, round the yard and around my parents' garden, with people I trust close by and absolutely nothing to prove.
Five Minutes, And I'd Have Taken Two
That is genuinely the whole of it. Five, maybe ten minutes at a walk. No schooling, no plan, no grand ideas. Some days we potter around the garden and she is chiefly concerned with whether the grass near the pond is tastier than the grass by the gate (it is, obviously, and she would like it noted that she is absolutely starving, as ever). And I let her, because after this year the sight of Patsy calmly, greedily being her ordinary greedy self is just about the best thing I can picture.
I have had to completely rewrite what counts as a good day. It used to be measured in what we achieved. Now a good day is five soft minutes and a horse who feels happy in her own skin, and honestly, I think it might be the truer way to measure it.
The pat I had been saving up for the best part of a year.
I am not counting down to anything. I am just trying to be very, very grateful for the day I am in.
Letting It Just Be What It Is
I want to be careful and honest here, because I know some of you are walking a version of this road too. I am not going to tell you Patsy is better, or fixed, or back to her old self. I do not know that, and I am not going to pretend I do. What I know is that right now, today, she feels good in these little walks, and I am holding onto that with both hands and not asking it to be anything more than it is.
We are taking it as it comes, with everything firmly crossed. If you are in the thick of your own horse's rehab, please do not measure yourself against us, or against anyone. Every horse is different, every road is its own strange, non-linear thing, and the only people who truly know your horse are you and your vet. This is a diary, not a map.
This grin took the best part of a year to earn.
And Then, A Wobble
I had this diary all but finished, full of five-minute walks and quiet gratitude, and then on Friday morning Patsy showed the first signs of laminitis. We caught it early, and on our vet's advice she has spent the weekend on box rest with no turnout, plus a couple of gentle in-hand wanders around the indoor school each day to stretch her legs and keep that busy brain of hers occupied. She is comfortable, she is being watched like a hawk, and beyond that I am not going to guess. Everything crossed.
So we will just see how this goes. Five quiet minutes at a time, and grateful for every single one of them.
Very soon, I want to write about what I think tipped her over the edge: a long dry summer, three days of rain, and the sugar that quietly hides in stressed grass. I had genuinely no idea, and if sharing it helps even one of you catch it early, it is worth writing. I will pop the link right here once it is up.