Given the way the last few years have gone, making goals feels like spitting in the wind, but let’s give it a try?

I’m not going to recap my 2023 goals. They all went out the door when Tristan was diagnosed with a keratoma that required surgery just a few weeks into year. Sure, I could’ve picked it up but the rest of my life was spinning out of control by the time he was done with rehab, and then my city flooded, and whoosh there went the rest of 2023.

(Side note, did anyone out there have a good 2023? Everyone I’ve talked to in real life had a garbage year.)

So, let’s talk about some straightforward horse-related goals for 2024.

1. Ride, work, groom, or visit the barn 200 days a year

Unfortunately, I fell down really hard on barn time in 2023. 200 feels like a low number for past me, but it would be a big leap forward from 2023. Tristan is happy, healthy, and mostly retired, and we have no competition or other goals that would put us in a program, so 200 is fine to do some light rides, deep grooms, and general checkins.

2. Write 100 blog posts

I miss writing! I want to get back, even if it’s just quick stuff.

3. Weed / organize horse stuff

I have too much. A lot of it has to go. I’m pushing for a big declutter in February, and horse stuff will be a strong focus for me.

4. Social media posting schedule for Bel Joeor Metier

Yes! I still have that Etsy side business. 2020 was such a weird year that it blew actual tracking metrics all to hell, but suffice to say that if I hadn’t had that weird year (and its subsequent drop), I’d be in a place now where I’d expect to be in year 5 of a slow, steady grind.

I need to be more intentional about it again, though, and not just rely on happenstance, because Etsy is contracting slightly, and (I think in part due to my shop’s success, actually) there is more competition than there was when I started.

5. Get horse savings to $?k

I’m not posting the amount just for privacy reasons but suffice to say that this account (meant for a someday big purchase like a competition horse, truck & trailer, or who even knows) took a huuuuuuuuge hit with surgery. Back on the grind!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about luck in horses.

We most often talk about it in terms of bad luck: a thrown shoe, a tack failure, a freak injury, a colic out of nowhere. A horse that falls through the cracks and ends up in a terrible home. It’s the kind of thing everyone horse person expects and to some extent plans for. They are large, fragile, active animals and they do weird things at weird moments according to their own internal logic. That is a given.

I’ve been thinking more, though, about good luck. More specifically, how much of it is unknowable and ineffable at any given time.

I would submit that to have a long journey with horses – and even more, with one horse in particular – you have experienced along the way a great deal of good luck. Ways that the universe aligns that you could never even know to count.

Next week, I will have owned Tristan for 18 years. That is an incredibly long stretch by any measure. If you count birthdays as January 1, he’ll be 29 years old. (for pure sentimental reasons I count his birthday in April, but frankly it’s all arbitrary)

How does a horse get to that age with the kind of life he’s had? I work hard every single day to be a good horse person, and to make good decisions for him; to make sure that he receives the best possible care and treatment, and stays healthy and happy. I’m so far from alone in that, though: there are top horses at every barn in the country whose every step is analyzed, watched, personalized, and on and on.

What I am trying to say is: there is a strong element of good luck in the way that I have matched up with Tristan, and the way we have grown together. He is not a horse that would have thrived in that program of being obsessed over. He needs a certain amount – well, quite a lot, really – of being left the hell alone. His inflexibilities are many but they are ones that work for me, and the way we have lived our lives together across three states and seven (!) different barns.

Despite his many weird medical things over the years, there are also plenty of places where we lucked out. Things were caught at just the right moment, the slightly unorthodox treatment fit the challenge perfectly, or in last year’s case – I had spent literal years building up a savings account that could take a $10k hit to send him five states away for highly specialized surgery.

Thinking of it this way helps me be grateful instead of tired and wary for the next shoe to drop. Horse ownership is an exercise in constant vigilance, but if you dwell too much on that you get worn down and worn out.

I’d rather celebrate the moments when things turned for the better.

I feel like I’m doing some catchup here, but…I think the last time I gave a Cushings update for Tristan, it was not long after the rules change that disallowed compounded pergolide, which he’d done really well on.

Since then, we did some more precise testing and Tristan’s levels were higher than we wanted, and he got moved to 1.5 tabs of Prascend a day. He’s tolerating it beautifully, thankfully, and both his levels and his symptoms remain fully under control.

However: the cost keeps going up pretty steadily. I just checked, and in 2019 I was paying $288 per box, buying directly from my vet. In 2020, I paid $337 a box, and was able to consistently find a coupon that brought it to $303.50. In 2022, the price went to $354, and I stopped being able to consistently find coupons or rebates. (I generally use Valley Vet, though always Google around every time I order; the price is pretty locked in across all the sites I’ve found.)

I just ordered a box – which at his current rate, will last 106 days – and it cost $375. That’s $2.43 a pill, or $3.60 per day for just that one medication.

Some years ago, there was promise of hope on the horizon when the Prascend trademark was set to expire. There was a lot of talk in online forums about a generic supplier picking up the formulation and making a cheaper version, but that hasn’t happened.

I don’t have an end goal here, except to say that it’s really starting to add up – and Cushings is a progressive disease. Tris might need two tabs a day someday. It’s becoming a significant chunk of my budget, even setting aside his other standard veterinary stuff – about which I’ll write later.

2023 has not been my favorite of the calendar years.

Tristan is doing well, but I’m not, terribly. I’ve been busy and tired and overwhelmed. I’ve had a ton of huge things going on. I haven’t been nearly the horse person that I want to be, these last few months.

I’ve also missed writing for a while now, and while my brain has the tendency to wait for clean fresh starts with “round” things (like the significance of starting on a 1, or with a New Year, or anything else), I was looking at my list of things I had hoped to be doing more of this year, and writing was on there.

So here I am, writing a little bit. I hope to get back into the habit in small bites over the next few days.

Here’s the old man himself, still fit and sassy and happy as ever at 28 and a half.

Well, it’s been a busy and stressful couple of weeks. I think I am only just starting to understand how much the beginning of my year threw me off kilter. I can’t seem to get a handle on anything, no matter how hard or fast I work.

The good news is that everything with Tristan is proceeding exactly as we hoped. When last I blogged, I wrote a short note to say that his surgery went well. It went really precisely as we could have hoped. The next morning the vet texted me to say that he had jogged out almost entirely sound, and got his glue-on shoes put on by the hospital vet. I got to see him briefly that afternoon, which was a huge relief.

I hadn’t made any plans at all until after I head his surgery went okay, so I jumped into action and updated the shipper, the barn, and worked on my own travel plans. The shipper put us on the schedule tentatively for Sunday, and I only had my AirBnB through Friday, so I made a hotel reservation for Friday & Saturday. I cleaned up, did some laundry, and actually got out and about a little bit. It worked out really well that we were shipping Sunday; Friday & Saturday was the polar vortex in Vermont, with -20F actual temps, and I had been starting to worry about bringing Tristan from his heated barn in (relatively) tropical Pennsylvania into that.

One of the places I went on Friday was Bartville Harness, which was a very cool place to visit and made me wish that a) I wasn’t about to be flat broke and b) that I wanted or needed anything leather-related. Tons and tons of gorgeous stuff at really extremely reasonable prices! I also ended up there because Google told me that Nunn Finer still had a retail store. When I drove by there was an RV store there…so I called…and talked to John Nunn himself, which was fun! And in the moment he said it, I remembered that he wasn’t doing retail anymore, just wholesale to other stores & through the website. So, Bartville it was.

On Saturday, I went out and about a fair bit more. The AirBnB was comfortable and cozy so I processed stress by hiding under blankets there. The hotel room was tiny and impersonal (though clean and otherwise fine!) so it was easier for me to go out and about. I visited a local Dover and bought a few things for Tristan’s rehab, and then over to a Maryland Saddlery consignment store branch. I almost bought a sweater but wasn’t sure about the sizing, and after 20 minutes of waiting for the lone changing room, I put it back and left empty-handed. I also went to Fair Hill Saddlery and bought some dry shampoo.

On Sunday, we got a slightly later start than intended, and I had several conversations with New Bolton about getting him ready. “Yes, I want all the blankets on him, in the order I told you. I know it’s 50 degrees here. It’s going to be way colder at home.” I also had sent him down with a zippered canvas bag full of his grain, papers, treats, extra halter, etc., and I hadn’t been able to learn from anyone whether I’d be getting it back. It wouldn’t be a huge deal if it had gotten lost, but I did at least want to know. Thankfully, at one point a lovely vet tech came out with his discharge instructions – which I hadn’t laid eyes on until that moment – so I had about 30 minutes to review them and then email them to my barn manager and vet. I had been worrying a bit that if there was anything complicated or different than expected I’d have to scramble to arrange it while driving home. Nothing like that – pretty straightforward!

Overall, that morning was a fairly typical interaction. The people were so, so lovely when I actually talked or worked with them. They did a spectacular job handling and managing Tristan, and of course treating him for the actual medical problem that was the reason he was there. The administration and overall communication absolutely blew chunks – from secret verbal-only policies about visitation that conflicted with their written policies as published on their website to the whole black-box nature of everything. It was very much a “we’ll tell you what you need to know when we feel you need to know it” attitude. I’m sure that would be terrific for some people. It gave me more or less constant heartburn. I’ve spent 18 years advocating for and managing this horse, and simply putting him in the hands of people I’d never met, no matter what their reputation, and then having close to zero information or insight into what was happening with him was HUGELY stressful.

Anyway. I digress. When the shipper arrived on Sunday, they brought Tris out to me and after a relative minimum of fuss he got on the trailer. He was clearly furious that he had to get back on – he stopped cold and looked back over his shoulder at the barn like “but…all I have to do here is look cute and eat hay and it’s heated and my stall was huge and you want me to get back on that thing?!” So he balked a touch more than he had in getting on for the trip down, but I put the chain on, we had a word or two, tons of praise for any forward motion, and after a couple of back and forths he sighed heavily and got on. And proceeded to paw the everloving shit out of the floor. With his left front, at least, so he clearly felt comfortable and weight-bearing on the surgery foot! The little shit.

My drive was totally uneventful if long, and I got to Vermont about 45 minutes before Tris. He came right off the trailer happily in the dark, attacked the hay waiting for him in his stall, and rolled and rolled and rolled in the fresh shavings. I gave him some more electrolytes that night just to be neurotic. The next morning he’d had plenty to drink and eat and had passed plenty of manure, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

This is getting long, so I’ll cover his rehab path going forward.

I will have more substantial updates later, maybe, but for now:

• Tristan shipped down on Sunday, January 29, a touch earlier than planned but better early than late! He ended up spending 13 hours on the trailer but handled it beautifully.
• He had his surgery this morning, February 1, and it went precisely as planned. The surgeon removed the keratoma, and because we caught it so fast, he did not have to debride the coffin bone at all.
• Tris handled the anesthesia beautifully – you may remember that I thought they would be able to do the surgery standing under local, but that was not the case. Regardless, he had zero problems and when he woke up he looked around and calmly stood up.
• Apparently all the vet students are quite charmed by him!
• I haven’t been able to see him much due to weird mixups about secret unpublished COVID rules, but hope to get a little time with him tomorrow.
• Since Vermont is about to experience a hideously dangerous cold snap on Friday and Saturday, I’m hoping to target Sunday for his return. It doesn’t feel smart or safe to move him from a heated barn to a place experiencing -20F actual and -50F windchill temps.

I got basically nothing done today, could practically feel my brain slipping gears whenever I tried to concentrate, but this evening I am finally releasing some of the stress and able to focus again.

Hopefully my next update is that Tris is home safe and sound and we are on the rehab path!

Last time Tristan had surgery on this foot, for an ever-so-slightly different problem, I did a wrap-up post about the costs, because I think it’s useful for people to know and think about these things.

First things first: I do not have insurance. I guess I have sort of self-insured because I have worked very hard for many years to build up savings accounts specifically for Tristan emergencies. They will take a significant hit with this surgery, but they are enough for me to be able to say that money will not be the thing making any decisions for us over the next couple of weeks. I get to focus solely on ensuring the best possible outcomes. I’m grateful for that.

I’ll post further with updates as things evolve, but here are where things stand today, 10 days out from the surgery.

Date	Category	Description	Amount
1/10/23	Veterinary	Diagnosis by home vet, rads	$450.00
1/11/23	Misc. Care	BOT bell boots	$49.65
1/20/23	Misc. Care	Wrapping supplies	$46.35
1/20/23	Travel	AirBnB Reservation	$556.76
1/31/23	Travel	Shipping estimate (VT->PA)	$1,250.00
2/1/23	Veterinary	Surgery estimate	$2,800 – $3,900
2/3/23	Travel	Shipping estimate (PA->VT)	$1,250.00
		Total so far:	$6,402.76 – $7,502.76

Likely additions going foward:

• local vet aftercare & checkups
• specialty shoeing (glue-ons for at least one cycle)
• extra hospital costs if he has to stay a few days or receive more hands-on treatment
• extra travel costs for me if I have to stay down longer than my current reservation, plus gas & food

The subject kind of says it all. This adorable guy has been in the barn for a while now, but we have a new barn worker with driving experience and they’re seeing what he can do!

I’ve never traveled this far with a horse before, OR used a commercial shipper, so any advice is greatly appreciated!

Prep ahead of the trip

– Tris is gradually getting used to wearing his Back on Track products for longer and longer periods of time; that’s his bell boots, front leg quick wraps, and sheet. My plan is to ship him in the sheet and bell boots, and mayyyyybe the quick wraps? The bell boots will also come in handy post-surgery, as they are meant to increase blood flow to the hoof.

– I’ve got the go-ahead to hand walk, and so every day we are going to do a deep groom, 20-30 minutes of hand walking, some stretching, and start practicing some of our in-hand trailer loading skills. It’s been 4 years or so since he last loaded on a trailer, and he’s never been great at it. The idea is to keep up his muscle tone and overall movement even though he’s not in work, and to work especially on his “step up” in hand, his cue to take one step forward at a time, which was key to his previous trailer loading. (I had it so ingrained that even when he was overall refusing life, I could usually get him to take a step forward; string enough of those together and he’s on before he knows it.)

– This weekend I’ll pull out our old travel trunk and empty and repack it with things we might need on the trip. That will probably travel down with me in my car, since it’s more “nice to have” stuff than stuff he will need on the trailer itself. In there will go things like a backup halter and lead, any other blankets I might want to bring, grooming tools in case they let me in with him, that kind of stuff. (I am guessing New Bolton will have far stricter rules than our local equine hospital, who let me take my book into his stall with him.)

– I’ve started shifting money around in and out of various savings, ugh, and stopped spending on anything not absolutely 1000% necessary.

Still to figure out

– Exact shipping dates, and I know this is the way the world works and I know everyone else deals with it all the time but WOW, I can’t even express the heartburn of doing a major trip in two weeks and the plan for shipping being “sure, we can do something around that date, let’s touch base five days out.” I HATE IT.

– Exactly what the hospital needs/wants for him to have while he’s there. Am I going to be that person that brings his hay from home? TBD. How to pack up grain, supplements, etc? Does he need his own buckets? Do I need to label all of his stuff in a specific way?

– I think I have an AirBNB picked out but I need to decided how many days to get it for (see above re shipping) and whether I really need something nicer but a touch further away from the hospital? Pursuant to the questions about the hospital, they’re probably not going to want me sitting around all day (again, bless our regional folks who let me camp out in their waiting room with my work stuff for two days).

– Waiting on a conversation with the surgeon for some last questions, and the one I haven’t asked yet because I can’t quite emotionally wrap my brain around it is prognosis for soundness. All signs point to yes, but ugh, I just can’t quite get there yet.

Planning for aftercare

– I’ve started organizing up all my medical supplies, and bought new stocks of my favorite duct tape (yes, I have a favorite, I have zero shame about this) and Elastikon. God, do I wish something else worked as well as Elastikon because that stuff is so expensive.

– I’ve also put a weather eye on all my commitments for February; I have my leadership training for the first few days after we return but! It’s the only session that will be near where I live already, and just two towns over from Tristan, hallelujah, so I can sneak out early morning or late at night to check and rewrap if I need to.

– In theory, this should be an easier aftercare than last time, so I am cautiously optimistic that the hurdle of the surgery itself will be the worst part.

Anything I’m missing???

So when we left it, I was waiting for the results of Tristan’s specialty radiology consult.

Consult is in and the diagnosis is clear: Tristan has a keratoma growing at the site of the old surgery on his coffin bone.

I guess the good news is that it’s a clear and unequivocal diagnosis with a straightforward path.

The bad news, however, is that it will require surgical removal. The news that actually made me burst into a short bout of mildly hysterical laughter was that he has to go to New Bolton for the surgery.

See, there’s a surgeon there that my vet has worked with who is spectacular at this work, and has pioneered a new way of doing this surgery that goes in through the hoof wall in conjunction with a CT scan of the hoof. It can be done under sedation with a local block, standing, and heals faster, more cleanly, and is more precise. All of that is exactly what you want with a 27 year old horse.

All good things. That require me to get him to a vet hospital 7.5 hours away. I know, some of you out there are thinking “I travel that far just to school XC!” Consider that in New England, an hour in any direction puts us in a new state and/or country.

The rule, though, is that he gets whatever he needs (and the vast majority of what he wants). So the surgery is scheduled for February 1, as of right now. I have to spend the next few days calling every shipper I can find to see if any of them will take my horse to Pennsylvania in the middle of winter. (If you have any ideas at all, please reach out!)

It’s never dull around here. At least I can still wrap a foot like nobody’s business.