First Session of Shock... and our 100th Post!

(100 posts! apparently Miss P is giving me plenty to talk about... here's to many more stories and adventures to come..)

After our ultrasound appointment, our vet suggested leaving P's standing wraps off for the night and relying on the shockwave treatment and long walks to keep the fill out... But when I showed up yesterday (with crazy machine in hand), P's front leg had ballooned again almost to the level it had been at last week.  I made a mental note and decided that maybe we'd stick with wraps at night for a few more days to keep the inflammation down. 

So I pulled P out of her stall and started assembling the weird shock machine... and read the instructions, which freaked me out a little.

 Uhhhh what.  Thing sounds (and looks) like a torture device, but after reading through a few times, I decided that I was good to go.  I set up a little stool so that I could sit while treating P for the prescribed 12 minutes, and got everything all situation so that I could leap to plug it in then get the head in contact with P's puffy and sensitive leg before burning the "crystal."

This was a great plan.  However it didn't account for the fact that P was avoiding my contact with her leg like a dancing monkey, which in turn, totally ruined my well thought out set up for this 12 minute session.   I finally figured out that if I held her hoof up she stayed mostly quiet, but this still meant that I was hunched over, holding what felt like half my horse's weight, and out of reach of the actual machine - which  resulted in a slightly lower power setting than I was going for, but the power flucuates, so you need to be constantly adjusting a little knob that just wasn't going to be adjusted my my non-existant third hand from across the aisle.  whew.

In the end, we managed a full 12 minutes of treatment, slightly lower power setting and then we went for a big long walk.  I started in the ring since it was raining and Pia was a little amped up.  she was thoroughly pissed that there were two other mares canter around getting worked while I made her stay at a slow stroll, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles.  After about 30 minutes we headed outside and strolled around the neighborhood a bit, which was more excited than circles in the ring, and gave her feet some good gravel crunching time.

When we got back to the barn, most of the swelling was gone again (yay), but we still iced for 20 minutes, wrapped and got put away like a Christmas present. :)

I'll be a little more prepared today, but honestly I'm going to ahve to find a solution for holding P up for 12 minutes.  I mean, I'm strong, but I'm not superwoman and the mare can stand politely. :)

Happy Friday everyone!