God Loves Me and Wants Me To Be Happy!

My Jazz and Me

    Three years ago I started on this journey. The day began as any other day began with my son in the car with me heading to the bus stop. Just short of the bus stop, I saw a sight that would change the course of my life in an instant. My horse, Jazz, who came into my life 7 years prior and changed the course of my life back then, was acting strangely in the pasture. One leg was raised in the air, flailing around. At first I thought she was having a seizure but then I realized that her hoof was caught in a barb wire fence that she had pulled off several posts and tried to run from. She had been trying to literally saw off her foot to get loose from the monster that had trapped her. I stopped the car, ran between the strands of barbed wire left on the posts and ran near her. Close enough to not get kicked I tried to free her from the wire with my bare hands.

    Since she was in a panic,
I drove back up to the barn to get her halter and attempt to calm her down. When I returned she had freed herself and was trying to get back to the herd who had fled to the other side of the pasture to escape the perceived threat. I caught her and sent my son up to the barn to get medical supplies and called the vet on my cell phone who assured me he was on his way. I explained to him that I was putting a lot pressure on the wound and could not stop the bleeding. I was unfamiliar with the pressure points and he told me not worry. "This is what I want you to do," he said, "I want you to hold the towel on her hoof until I get there. I'm on my way."   

   I dutifully held the towel over her hoof as instructed. I squatted in the pasture holding the towel on her gushing wound while Jazz, knowing she was in terrible trouble, stood quietly with me for twenty long minutes as we waited for the vet to arrive. My son let the other horses out into the adjacent pasture and Jazz didn't even flinch. She calmly waited with me; choosing me, her trusted leader, over her herd. When the vet arrived and removed the blood soaked towel, I nearly fainted. I started to panic and my vet's calming voice assured me. "Horses can lose a whole lot of blood and will be just fine." Later he confessed the whole towel therapy was for me not my horse to keep me from looking at the blood and stay calm til he got there.  

    The news got worse though. Although Jazz lived through the critical days and hours after her accident. The outlook remained grim. Because she had a literally sawed about a third of her hoof  off including the coronary band, the experts at K-State agreed with my vet that her hoof was unlikely to grow again. Our treatment plan was aimed at mitigating lethal complications and praying for enough hoof structure that she could stand on four legs and live out her elderly years. "No hoof, no horse," my vet warned. I added lots of prayer and Grand Hoof supplement to her regimen and about six months later had a vet and a farrier surprised by the possible hoof growth at her coronary band. 

    "She has hoof," I declared.
    "Possibly," the skeptics refused to believe, "but it's highly unlikely at this point." 

    A year later she was getting her first trim and the farrier said, "You may even be able ride her with some corrective shoeing." 

    It's been a year since then and her hoof has had it's ups and downs. She lost a big chunk that we had to wait on to regrow and a few episodes of extreme lameness. It comes and goes. But so does her joy of galloping around the pasture. Some days, she is the last to walk up behind a galloping herd. Some days she is in front galloping along side her pasture mates. 

    Those first days and weeks I was just praying that Jazz lived. I wasn't worried about riding her again. I meant it when I said that I would be grateful if she just lived even if I never rode her again. After the first year, it sank in hard that I may never get to ride her again. I will always be grateful for the extra time I got with Jazz but I would be lying if I said I would not be extremely sad if  I didn't get to ride her again. 

    There is something about a person and a horse bond-- that bonds two hearts together for life. I feel it and I know Jazz feels it. As I have spent the last year riding other peoples horses and training up a young horse, I  have missed the depths of that  bond that Jazz and I have; that dance that we aspire to under saddle. Knowing each other and trusting each other takes years to develop. You don't just hop on someone else's horse and get that. A young horse takes a lot of conscious effort to ride and some days, you just want to hop on a trusted mount and not have to work at it. You need a willing, happy partner you know trusts you and you can trust to carry you wherever you ask without refusal or incident. 

    It's been a long time but today, I got to sit on my beautiful mare. I got to move with her again as she responded to my light aids. I cried with joy just to be there in a place I thought I would never get to go again.  God had given me everything I needed when Jazz lived through her critical days and weeks two years ago. Today, God taught me not to underestimate his love for me!