Megs Blog - Our Life With Horses

After hitting rock bottom on Friday it was time to take stock and be honest with myself about what more I could actually do for myself and our family to bring back health.

If I was honest, quite a lot.

My diet had fallen into poor nutrients, high carbs and very little sustenance, a roller coaster of sugar spikes and dips that was leaving my adrenal glands depleted and my inflammation through the roof.

As I know, any sort of stressor on the body creates inflammation, and rubbish food that my body doesn’t really get anything from is exactly that a stressor.

My mums celiac and although I know I’m not in that category, grains have never sat well for me, but I’d convinced myself recently that they weren’t doing me that much harm, that what time or energy do I have to think about making a more nutritious meal…and…

I've just got back home from another hospital visit, the 5th I think in 3 weeks. Not all for the same reason, which somehow makes it even more frustrating. Another Consultant taking their very busy time to go through with me what is happening, on Tuesday I had a lot of prodding and poking leaving me very ill afterwards, today was just a long clinical history "again" and a question, how do you manage?

That one sat a bit harder, we do manage, I juggle, I work when I can, I sit under hot water bottles, I take painkillers and other medication, I get up an hour earlier than I need to, to allow my daily meds to"kick in", Olive gets used to seeing her mum curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor as I was yesterday morning, or crawling onto the sofa where she hears me say…

I’ve been battling a migraine that just won’t shift for over a week now, with months where the pain is manageable to hours where only a dark room and my thoughts will do.

But in this time it’s given me space to think, to notice what creates anxiety in me when it wasn’t there a moment before and to wonder what could life be like without this constant pull in may directions.

We’re all busy, but the world now has a hold on us in a way that no other generation before has ever experienced. The pull of the external into our very internal space from notifications to, addictive scrolling. The flood of information pouring into our brains, most of which is pointless and not needed…I didn’t need to know that a persons car got broken into by a bear in Calgary, and the choice to ignore such information creates…

As I mentioned in my previous post another thing I knew I needed to check was the fit of Harribo's saddle.

Saddle fit in young horses is a challenge and in ponies it seems more as the varety of saddles made to that size is so limited, in the past whilst I've been waiting for thw rite moment to get a saddle fitted I've used childrens pads for the ponies, but Harribo really didn't like this, they are have such a close contact feel his overstimulated brain at the time couldn't cope with the intensity of feel of movement created by the rider and for him the pads were a real trigger point of tension.

So we found a little saddle that "would do" until his shape chnaged enough to fit a saddel to, but also more importantly I had a clearer yes and no.

What do I mean by…

Today I took Harribo to the vets for a scope to see if he had ulcers.

I’ve had this mental itch about ulcers and Harribo for a while, his way of “spooking” is very scooty where he puts his back end under tucks his belly up and shoots forwards.

This has developed into stopping with Olive riding, stretching to go to the toilet but not really going and most recently becoming girthy when he’s always been ok with his girth.

I had two main paths to look at

• saddle fit (he’s changed shape a lot and Olive has grown a lot)

• ulcers