Plans For 2014

I guess this is something that I should blog about.  What am I going to do in 2014?  Well, there won't be any New Year resolutions or fancy plans to change who I am.  Here it is in a nut shell. I think this year I'm going to focus mostly on myself.  Not for another person's wants, needs, and desires.  It's my year.  I dunno exactly what my master plans are, but I'll figure it out as it comes. 

If one thing is for certain, I want to get a control of my emotional stress and triggers.  The grounding techniques my therapist has given me has already done wonders concerning flashbacks and trauma-drawn emotions.  I am excited to see where my mental state ends up as a result of therapy and the medication.  I am hoping to be completely done with both by the end of summer.

I am going to go to the gym Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the entire semester.  Some days I may not be able to make it because of doctor appointments and other obligations I can't reschedule, but for the most part I'll be there three days a week for at least an hour at a time.  The purpose of going to the gym isn't for me to look better (although that is a perk), but more so that I can be in shape and more flexible for the yoga I plan on doing with Buck.

Speaking of my Bucket, I'm not sure what I want to do with him this year.  Of course we will work on our relationship more and test the limits of trust, but overall I think we are just gonna have do our best and announce it as it happens!  I want to get more horse riding lesson clients too! How many people actually want to take lessons is out of my control, but I am going to put a lot of energy into advertising and promoting natural horsemanship for beginners. 

I hope to take at least 15 credit hours a semester so I can graduate by Spring 2015 with my bachelors of integrated studies.  I'm not saying I'm going to resolve to get a 4.0, but that sure would be nice!  I'll try my best!

Here is to a new year with new adventures, achievements, struggles, realizations, and knowledge!  I have a feeling I won't be disappointed :)

 Goodbye 2013!

A Relfection on 2013

The time has come!  I've been putting off this reflection for a while for a few reasons: 
A) It's going to be a long post.
B) It requires a lot of thinking.
C) I'm lazy.

Let's go through this month by month.
January: My hair got cut off completely one day before the semester started.  I was going in to get a new short hair style, and came out looking like a boy.  It was an accident, ha.  Fortunately, people still thought I was pretty.  Someone even gave me shampoo because they felt bad! HA!  I also met my friend from China, Alice.

February: Logan and I started dating again after breaking up the following December.

March: I learned that Buck was going to be my new horse.  I wasn't very happy about it, and I don't think Buck was either.  Foxy's one year anniversary of her death was on March 28th.  I was still recovering from the accident at this point. I surrounded her grave with a fence in remembrance of how much she meant to me.  OJ stayed by her grave for hours afterwards.

April: I completed spring semester with my associates of applied science from Southern Utah University.  My graduating GPA was a 3.5.

May: I moved back home from Cedar City on May 7th to the Hooper house. On May 18th we moved after 13 wonderful years to a new house in Taylor. I still really miss the old house.  I broke up with Logan for the same reason I broke up with him in December. I decided to go into Elementary Education instead of communications. Not because I didn't want to, but because I wouldn't have to be in school for as long. Oh, and I turned 20 but did not celebrate too much.

June: Pie Town, NM!  Mine and Buck's relationship was still nonexistent.  I think I recall him stepping on me four or five times since March.   I saw my first horse leg and hoof dissection.  I learned by Foxy broke her leg.  Logan gave me an engagement ring, we stopped talking.

July: Logan told me he bought me tickets to go to South Africa back in February, so we started talking again.  He and Alice came to Marysvale with my family for the 4th of July.  I had to stop donating plasma because my heart rate was at a steady 115 and I had to go to the doctor for it.  But, I made a friend with one of the workers there before I stopped going, Cam! Alice, Cam, and I went to the zoo and aquarium. It was a blast!

August: Logan and I went to South Africa for ten days.  It was a trip of a lifetime and I will be going back one day.  That country is just amazing.  We also spent a day in Washington DC and saw the natural history museum. I started college back at Weber State University as a junior.  Oh, and Buck and I started riding bridleless!

September: Not a lot happened.  I was going full steam ahead in college and working with Buck every day.  Buck and I had made significant progress in our relationship by this point.  I began going to therapy and started on antidepressants as recommend by my doctor to treat my PTSD, anxiety, and of course, depression.

November: I went to Washington and Oregon for Thanksgiving.  It was nice seeing family I haven't seen in years and years, but at the same time it kind of just refueled my anger towards how uninvolved they've been in our lives here in Utah.

December: Graduated with 3 A's and 1 A- for the second semester in a row.  I just can't seem to get a 4.0!  I am getting a bachelors in integrated studies.  My concentrations are psychology, child and family studies, and communications.  I will be graduating spring 2015, and will start my masters program the following fall.  I cancelled by PRAXIS exam and instead signed up to start getting my equine specialist certification for EAGALA.

This year went by incredibly fast.  I learned a lot of valuable lessons and discovered characteristics about myself that are priceless.  One of the most important things I learned is to not sell myself short for what I really deserve in life.  I have a greater respect for my intelligence, morals and values, talents and desires.

To the New Year!

Buck, Medication, and College

So yeah, we have been having between 0 and 15 degree days at my house.  It hasn't kept me inside though, which is surprising.  I have always hated the cold.  This is the first winter that I have actually been outside nearly every single day.  It's all because of Buck, too.  Him and I have been going on daily rides.  We get to watch the sun set over the snowy fields and spend a lot of time together in the silence.  We can hear each other so clearly.  He has been feeling good lately.  His transitions are flawless.  He can go from a walk to a canter in a split second--something that was impossible to do a few short months ago.  

The last play day we had Jennie and Larry noticed that Buck was rotating his hind legs out a significant amount at a walk and trot.  It was brought to my attention from a vet at the play day that Buck's previous owners had taken them to her and had him evaluated for bone spavins.  He tested positive for them.  For those of you who don't know what a bone spavin is, it is the final stage of joint degeneration in the hocks.  We don't know how long ago he was diagnosed with it and how severe it was when he was tested, so we decided to take him back in.  Four x-rays later we were able to determine that Buck has nearly fused the lower 1 and 2 joints in both his hocks.  These lower joints are not the primary joints that the hock relies on for flexing.  He may appear to be slightly more stiff on the hind end, but overall it should not affect his performance. This is a very painful process for horses, but it is a relief that his body started to fuse them so long ago and now they are nearly complete.  I feel bad though because we had no idea he was in the process of fusing.  The strain on his hocks during certain movements explains his resistance to following through with repeated commands.  Although irritating the joints encourages fusing, without any pain medication it is really quite an unpleasant thing to experience for a horse.

 These are his four x-rays.  The part outlined in red is the area where the two joints are fusing.  The blue circle indicates the remaining space between the two joints that needs to finish fusing.  His right joints are nearly completely fused, which is great.  His left, as you can see, has a significant amount left to go.  As a treatment option to encourage the joints to continuing fusing with the minimal pain possible, we injected Buck's hocks with dormosedan, polyglycan, and banamine....basically a bunch of stuff to reduce pain, help the other joints in the area, and encourage fusing.  We don't know if the rotation he was having was due to the pain on his hocks or if it is his stifles.  I will have to watch over the next couple weeks to see if the injections reduced the amount of rotation or not. All in all though Buck will be with me for a long time.  The only thing I'll have to watch out for is making sure I am not putting him in situations where he has to have an increased amount of prolonged pressure on the joints, as the fusion can break (ouch!).

As a side note, it is very possible Buck pulls himself with his front instead of pushing himself with his hind because of the pain he has experienced in his hocks.  Pulling himself relieves pressure on those joints.  I'm hoping once he has finished fusing he will start pushing instead, but we will see.  He has been pulling for a long, long time.

Aside from Buck, things have been "eh."  My medication is still doing its jobs, but the side affects have not gone away yet, which is not a good sign.  Just last night I woke up due to a night sweat.  It's so annoying. No one likes waking up covered in sweat -.-  The vivid dreams are still pretty common, almost nightly.  So far they haven't been disturbing but I don't necessarily enjoy having them.  I've never heard voices before, but man, last night was a first for that.  I was woken up by some voice yelling my name. It sounded like a demon.  Then for about thirty minutes after that random sounds were amplified in such a way they didn't seem real.  I've been so light headed and dizzy lately too.  I dunno.  Ugh.  I need to make another appointment with my doctor.

I am going to have a VERY busy next month a half.  I didn't know it at the time I signed up for my classes, but my biopsychology course is a 7 week speed course.  Four exams, at least one research based paper, plus multiple assignemnts...joy.  My ENGL 3300 class is gonna be fun.  My professor said that if we don't want to be overwhelmed when the semester starts that it would be a good idea to read 14 of the 35 books assigned before January 6.  I need to make a trip to the library, ha.  And I have three other classes, too.  My PRAXIS exam is scheduled for January 13.  I've already started studying for it, but it's going to take a lot of work.  I have to pass the first time around or I am in major jeopardy of not being able to start my education levels until Spring 2015.  That would put my degree back another year, and I would be unable to take other courses that are applicable towards my degree until then.  I don't even want to think about that.

My hair is getting so long!

 Oh, and Tango kicked me in the shin.  Little shit.