So now that I have learned how to live my life around endometriosis, and a few other inconveniences, along comes this new player: Fibromyalgia.
I had always loved horses...I'm sure equine DNA flows through my veins. The graceful beauty of their fluid movements and their huge gentle eyes that look right into your soul. I had ridden, shown, trained and horses since I was young and loved every aspect of it.
I loved to hop on my horse and take long rides in the beautiful rolling hills of Southern California, enjoying the beauty that others seldom ever saw.
Of course there were the falls and barrel racing accidents that come with being a daredevil on horseback. Before I had completed high school I had been inconvenienced by extensive surgery on both knees. One to re-attach a kneecap wiped off by a barrel, the other to splice back tendons, ligaments and remove bone fragments from a fall. Back in the mids 1970's arthroscopic surgery was not available so it was old school and took a long time to recuperate...which to me required too much time out of the saddle!
Through the course of growing up and starting a family, horses took a back seat, but were always in my heart and I knew one day, I would be back in the saddle.
That day finally came. My son was nearing graduation from high school, I was already heavily involved with a local non-profit as a board member, volunteer, and once the weight was lost, I was going to be certified as a therapeutic riding instructor for the disabled. When I was introduced to this beautiful filly and it was love at first sight.
She was right out of the pasture as a three year old and needed a good start, and I needed to lose 80+ pounds., it was a match made in heaven. So I sent her off to the trainers, and I went to work on losing the weight. During that time I ended up having yet another knee surgery...but they didn't slow me down.
Fast forward to the spring of 2008. I had lost the weight, (though I still wanted to lose more) was working full time at my day job, teaching riding lessons all day Saturdays, and feeding 25 horses almost daily by loading and throwing hay and fifty pound bags of feed from my pickup truck by myself. The lessons entailed readying the horses, lifting students on and off the horses, walking with them the entire time in the arena for each hour our half-hour lesson, on my feet walking for about 12 hours a day, etc. I was also working my horse and riding any chance I got including monthly horse shows, even achieving top ten two years in a row.
In steps my new friend Fibromyalgia.
I was having searing pain in my neck and shoulders and in random other parts of my body. It was April 2008 and I was doing laps in the local American Cancer Society Relay for Life. I had been walking all day and suddenly the pain was unbearable and I had to stop and take a break. I sat down in the chair and covered myself with a blanket, it was freezing and I was shivering.
After resting for awhile, I put my hands on the arms of the chair to push myself up, and I couldn't near any weight on my arms author seating pain, and the weakness and the pain was so bad I had to leave. During the next two days, I lost complete use of my left arm, and the pain persisted in both. I also noticed an increasing, unexplained pain throughout my body. I was still working and teaching, but had someone else do all the lifting and my son was feeding the horses.
While awaiting a doctors appointment, during a lesson, I accidentally grabbed the lead of my lesson horse with my left hand while assisting my student, the horse tossed his head, and tore my rotator clear through.
I had a surgery to repair the tear, but that was just the beginning. A total of three surgeries, hours and hours of painful physical therapy in the next two years and limited use of me arm and excruciating pain all over my body became a new constant.
After seeing multiple specialists, having nerve blocks in my shoulder and c-spine to no avail, being told that it was all in my head, that I had neurological damage, etc., my primary care physician diagnosed me with fibromyalgia in August of 2010.
I have not been able to ride our work my horse since the first surgery on my shoulder and little by little over the last three years I have had to give up almost everything I love to do including riding my horse, teaching and volunteering with the disabled, and had to resign from being on the board of directors of three non-profits I love dearly (but thankfully that does not include my job). I had to send my horse to pasture, which was so painful, knowing I might never ride again.
So this was the beginning of a new chapter in my new life.
I had always loved horses...I'm sure equine DNA flows through my veins. The graceful beauty of their fluid movements and their huge gentle eyes that look right into your soul. I had ridden, shown, trained and horses since I was young and loved every aspect of it.
I loved to hop on my horse and take long rides in the beautiful rolling hills of Southern California, enjoying the beauty that others seldom ever saw.
Of course there were the falls and barrel racing accidents that come with being a daredevil on horseback. Before I had completed high school I had been inconvenienced by extensive surgery on both knees. One to re-attach a kneecap wiped off by a barrel, the other to splice back tendons, ligaments and remove bone fragments from a fall. Back in the mids 1970's arthroscopic surgery was not available so it was old school and took a long time to recuperate...which to me required too much time out of the saddle!
Through the course of growing up and starting a family, horses took a back seat, but were always in my heart and I knew one day, I would be back in the saddle.
That day finally came. My son was nearing graduation from high school, I was already heavily involved with a local non-profit as a board member, volunteer, and once the weight was lost, I was going to be certified as a therapeutic riding instructor for the disabled. When I was introduced to this beautiful filly and it was love at first sight.
She was right out of the pasture as a three year old and needed a good start, and I needed to lose 80+ pounds., it was a match made in heaven. So I sent her off to the trainers, and I went to work on losing the weight. During that time I ended up having yet another knee surgery...but they didn't slow me down.
Fast forward to the spring of 2008. I had lost the weight, (though I still wanted to lose more) was working full time at my day job, teaching riding lessons all day Saturdays, and feeding 25 horses almost daily by loading and throwing hay and fifty pound bags of feed from my pickup truck by myself. The lessons entailed readying the horses, lifting students on and off the horses, walking with them the entire time in the arena for each hour our half-hour lesson, on my feet walking for about 12 hours a day, etc. I was also working my horse and riding any chance I got including monthly horse shows, even achieving top ten two years in a row.
In steps my new friend Fibromyalgia.
I was having searing pain in my neck and shoulders and in random other parts of my body. It was April 2008 and I was doing laps in the local American Cancer Society Relay for Life. I had been walking all day and suddenly the pain was unbearable and I had to stop and take a break. I sat down in the chair and covered myself with a blanket, it was freezing and I was shivering.
After resting for awhile, I put my hands on the arms of the chair to push myself up, and I couldn't near any weight on my arms author seating pain, and the weakness and the pain was so bad I had to leave. During the next two days, I lost complete use of my left arm, and the pain persisted in both. I also noticed an increasing, unexplained pain throughout my body. I was still working and teaching, but had someone else do all the lifting and my son was feeding the horses.
While awaiting a doctors appointment, during a lesson, I accidentally grabbed the lead of my lesson horse with my left hand while assisting my student, the horse tossed his head, and tore my rotator clear through.
I had a surgery to repair the tear, but that was just the beginning. A total of three surgeries, hours and hours of painful physical therapy in the next two years and limited use of me arm and excruciating pain all over my body became a new constant.
After seeing multiple specialists, having nerve blocks in my shoulder and c-spine to no avail, being told that it was all in my head, that I had neurological damage, etc., my primary care physician diagnosed me with fibromyalgia in August of 2010.
I have not been able to ride our work my horse since the first surgery on my shoulder and little by little over the last three years I have had to give up almost everything I love to do including riding my horse, teaching and volunteering with the disabled, and had to resign from being on the board of directors of three non-profits I love dearly (but thankfully that does not include my job). I had to send my horse to pasture, which was so painful, knowing I might never ride again.
So this was the beginning of a new chapter in my new life.
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