Almost too good to be true

For the first time in a year, I had good news when I left Dr. G.'s clinic with Kaswyn. The injured area of the splint bone in his left knee has healed 50% since the x-rays were taken a month ago. Combine this with the fact that my horse is totally sound and everyone was thrilled. Doc said that the prognosis is extremely favorable, and that 75% of these injuries heal completely.

I wasn't able to go with Kaswyn to the last visit, but this time I was able to go and see the before and after x-rays. I now have a much better understanding of what's going on in there. Basically he has an injury to the top of one of his splint bones. It's caused by concussive force and has resulted in inflammation in the bone and a separation of the splint bone from the cannon bone. So, technically, it's the very tops of the bones directly below the knee that are injured. This probably happened becasue he changed the way he moved when his navicular bone started bothering him, but there's no real way to tell.

The new plan is to slowly increase the amount of trotting over the next two weeks. If he stays sound, then start cantering, again slowing increasing that for two weeks. In a month, if he's still sound, then we start to wean him off of the bute and aspirin. He's only on one gram of bute and 3/4 of a scoop of aspirin once a day, which is not a lot of meds. So hopefully I can get him off the meds and he'll stay sound and we can finally get back to work.

Yesterday was the first time that I worked at the trot for more than three laps of the arena. Kaswyn felt great and ready to go. It was really hard not to do more, but I'm going to force myself to be patient and give this time to heal completely. I don't need or want another setback.

I'm both excited and hesitant about what the next few weeks will bring. More excited though. I think my horse is too.