I've been banished

Things have been pretty swell until recently. Anne would take me out for walks twice a day and then mommy would come at night, take me out to eat grass, feed me my grain and go home.

The trouble started last Thursday. Mom came out to the barn around lunch time. Normally she is at work on Thursdays at lunch time so right away I knew something was up. My second clue was she was driving the old, gray pick-up instead of her new red car. As soon as she pulled in I noticed it looked like she was hooking up the trailer. I went out in my paddock where I have a direct view of my trailer so I could get a good look. I felt nervous so I pooped. Then I went inside my stall came back out and took another look. Yep, it sure looked like she was hooking up the trailer. I pooped again, went back inside the stall and came out into the paddock for one last look to make triple sure. She was definitely hooking up the trailer. I pooped one more time just for good measure. Mom came in the barn carrying the blue things that she straps to my legs that make me unable to walk unless I take big, exaggerated steps.

Trailer rides usually don't result in us going someplace fun like to the lake for a picnic and a swim. It either means a show, a clinic or going to a place where I am drugged and violated. Since I haven't been ridden in awhile, I guessed it was going to be the latter.

She put my halter on and put me in the cross ties and began grooming me. She spent a lot of time brushing all the tangles out of my tail. I was beginning to think maybe I was going to a show or clinic. Then she took me outside to eat grass. This was unusual. A short time later my Auntie Donna showed up. I love my Auntie Donna. She gives the best butt rubs. She knows just where to touch me to get me to stretch my back up. She's a human physical therapist but I think she does pretty good with horses myself.

Mom let me go back in my stall to pee before putting me in the trailer. At first I pretended I wasn't going to get in the trailer but then mom put the chain on and I gave in.

When we arrived at our destination, Donna got me out of the trailer and I realized we were at the place that mom brought me to a few weeks before where they drugged me and stole some of my bone marrow. I am not sure what kind of weird cult my mom belongs to but I am starting to get really worried. It wasn't too bad when they would just shave my hair and then scan my body but now they are actually poking me with needles and taking stuff out of me. I have heard about bad guys that drug people and steal their organs to sell on the black market. I was starting to wonder if that was going on here. I am pretty sure they have taken at least one of my kidneys.

Some of the staff came out to greet us and the next thing I know, they stuck a needle in my neck. Soon I started feeling very woozy. They led me inside and put me in stocks so I couldn't move around. Brandi got out the clippers and shaved the area over my right hind. Dr Wilkins used the ultrasound to take a look at my ligament. Then Dr Scoggin got out another machine that was really noisy and put it on the same part of me. It was called Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy. That didn't take very long. After, they sterilized the area thoroughly with alcohol and covered everything in latex. Dr W used the ultrasound to guide her so she could stick a needle directly into the hole in my short dorsal ligament of the tuber sacrale. Once she got the needle positioned, Dr S brought over a vial of my stem cells and injected them into the ligament. Dr W then re-positioned the needle and Dr S injected another vial in the surrounding area. There were a total of 10 million stem cells in the two vials. Dr S called it liquid platinum. I was done. Donna took me outside to wake up while mom got instructions from Dr S. At least this time they put stuff in me instead of taking stuff out of me. I am starting to feel like maybe I am part of that weird show mom watches on TV called Lost.





I was relieved that my ordeal was over. Or so I thought. My world really got turned upside down when we got back home. First Mom put Tyler in my stall and then she put me in Tyler's stall. She put up a mesh stall guard so I was trapped inside the stall and could not go outside in the paddock. I was suppose to stay in the stall for seven days. I couldn't come out to walk or eat grass or anything. Had everyone gone completely crazy?

I tried, really I did. I was so good Thursday, Friday and all through the weekend. But enough is enough. A guy can only stand being locked up for so long. Today was a beautiful day and the wind was whipping around. I couldn't help myself. I broke out. I was able to tear the stall guard down and run out into my paddock. It felt good to be free. I tossed my head around and was just starting to enjoy myself when I saw my Mom coming down the driveway. Uh oh. I was busted. Mom came running into the barn yelling my name. I could tell she was upset. I ran out of my stall into my paddock and when I did I slipped on my back legs and almost fell down. It hurt really bad. My right leg was hurt. Oh no. What did I do? I didn't want to stand on it. I was hopping around the paddock on my three good legs. Mom came towards me with the halter. She looked very sad. She put my halter on and put me in the cross ties. I was still really excited. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins from all the excitement and from the pain. Then she brought me a carrot and pet me. She made a couple of phone calls. Jose came to feed dinner. I was starting to feel better.

A few minutes later Jose took me away. He took me to the other barn and put me in a stall with four walls. I can't even see the horses next to me. There are bars on the front so I can at least see out. Jose was nice enough to open the window so I can look out the back. There is no way of escaping. I guess this is solitary confinement. I don't know how long I am in for. The only good thing that happened is Mom came to visit a short time later and brought me my grain. I am sorry I misbehaved. I promise I will be good if you let me go back to my house and my friends.

Finally, the wait is over.

I got the call today that I have been anxiously waiting to receive for the past three weeks. Frappe goes back to Pioneer next Thursday, April 24, at 3:00 PM for his stem cell implantation.

My Turn

Mom has finally decided to let me post on the blog. Yeah, that’s right, she is “letting me” write on MY blog. It is called Frappelou not Nettiepooh. I don’t know why she gets to make all the decisions anyway. Just because she pays all the bills doesn’t make her the boss of me. Pluuueeez. Besides she is not very good at keeping it updated. I also think she felt guilty because my cousin Callahan, who is a French Bull Dog, has her own blog that she writes herself. And if a dog can blog a horse can blog cuz everyone knows horses are way smarter than dogs. OK, she does have a slight advantage because paws are definitely easier to type with then hoofs but that is where my good friend Alfonso comes in. He has agreed do the typing for me in exchange for daily back massages. Can you say GENIUS? Alfonso is one of the barn cats that live here. He just showed up one day and decided to stay. He is a Kool Kat. I don’t mean that in the 70’s way cuz I wasn’t born until the 90’s.





Life is pretty good here at Janet’s place but I do have a few complaints. First of all room service delivers three squares a day plus an evening snack and that is OK by me although four or five would be better. But I have noticed that portion sizes have gotten smaller recently. I am not sure if this is because of budget cuts or what but not everyone’s portions have decreased. In fact, my neighbor Duchess seems to be getting more food. And I did hear Anne tell mom that I am getting a little chubby and that she had better cut back my feed to only a couple of handfuls a day. That really teed me off but that’s OK cuz I got Anne back. On Friday when we went for one of our twice daily walks, I decided to teach her a lesson. I waited until we were as far out on the back twenty acres as possible. I was walking along all nice like and then wham out of no where I just went crazy. I leaped in the air, reared, bucked. I did my best impression of a rodeo horse. But Anne is way stronger than she looks. Have you ever seen her? She must weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. But she dug her heels in and hung on to that leash. I think if she didn’t have that chain on me I would have gotten away for sure. I got in trouble for it but I didn’t care. Nothing bad happens when I get in trouble. They just yell and some times I get smacked but it doesn’t hurt. Mom sometimes threatens to take my food away but she doesn’t. One time she actually went so far as to drive off without giving me my feed but five minutes later she was back. I have her wrapped around my hoof. LOL.

The apartments here are pretty nice. There are 8 units in this building. Housekeeping comes twice a day to clean up after me. Mom says she wishes she had someone come twice a day to cleanup after her. I hear she needs it too. I haven’t actually seen her place but rumor has it she is not the tidiest person. I am glad she hires someone to clean my place. The staff here is usually pretty good about letting me take my naps uninterrupted. It would be nice if management would install high speed internet in our complex though. That would make posting to my blog quicker. I like all my neighbors. Tyler finally got to move in my building last winter. He was staying at the same place but he lived in another building and his place wasn’t as nice. He lives two doors down now so we get to see each other all the time.

Complaint number two is about turnout. For some reason I am forbidden to go out into the lush, green, delicious pasture now. Apparently some vets have told mom and Anne that I can’t go out and they are listening to them. And guess what? Tyler can’t go out either. I think it is some sort of conspiracy. They said that it’s because we are both injured. First of all we both feel absolutely fine. Well, fine enough to go out to pasture (but not back to work). Secondly, how can going out to eat grass in a pasture be bad for you and what does it have to do with being injured? I am totally on board with not being ridden. That part makes perfect sense. Horses aren’t built to be ridden in the first place. But not grazing? Hello – that is what we were put on earth for. God made us to graze the plains. That is what we do. I don’t know who these vets are and what makes them think they are so smart and have all the answers but I don’t like them at all. I wish they would just listen to Uncle Kenny who says we should just be turned out in the pasture 24/7. Now he is a smart guy.

I noticed mom is driving a new red car. I hope she didn’t get rid of our gray truck b/c I don’t think that little red thing will haul my limo and it doesn’t match it anyway. Not that I care about that stuff but Tyler mentioned it didn’t match. I really don’t care how she spends our money as long as she doesn’t buy me any more clothes. I hate wearing clothes. I noticed on Saturday mom took away all of Tyler’s and my blankets. I hope I never see them again. Good riddance. I try very hard to destroy at least one or two blankets a season. If God wanted horses to wear clothes we would have been born with them on like humans. Of course the only thing mom should be spending, is more time letting me eat grass.

Gotta sign off for now. Alfonso says he is getting tired and needs to take a nap.

The Lameskys

You’ve heard of the Slowskys, the turtles that do the Comcast commercials? Well my sister and I own the Lameskys. Frappe and his BFF Tyler went to turnout together on Feb. 9 and somehow, and I am not implying that they were up to no good that day, they both ended up DFL. Here are a couple of pictures of “The Boys”, as we call them, doing what they do best.

New Washer and Dryer or Stem Cells?

I am the worst blogger, ever. A lot has happened in the last 5 months. Rather than go back and rehash all the ups and downs I will cut to the chase. On March 4 I took Frappe to see Dr. Carol Gillis for an ultrasound of his back/ SI joint. The ultrasound exam showed that he re-injured his right tuber sacral short dorsal ligament.

This is his third injury in the same spot in 5 years so we have decided that we are going to give it one more shot at getting him and keeping him sound for dressage work. Since this is our last try, I want to do everything within my means to give him the best chance at a full recovery and reduce the chance of re-injury.

After consulting with Dr. Charlie Scoggin at Pioneer Equine Hospital and Anne (and anyone else who would listen), I decided to try Regenerative Cell Therapy (stem cells). It was that or a new washer/dryer combo. You know, the really cool LG steam washer and dryer in cherry red.

What Regenerative Cell Therapy entails is harvesting either fat (from the tail head) or bone marrow to collect stem cells. The stem cells are sent off to a lab for processing and then the new stem cells are injected into the core lesion. I decided to go with the bone marrow-derived stem cells. Although it takes longer to receive the processed stem cells back from the lab, there is some evidence that bone marrow stem cells are slightly better than fat-derived.

On March 25 at 6:40 AM Cat, Frappe and I set off for Pioneer. We arrived shortly before our appointment at 8:30. Dr. Scoggin came out and talked with us for a few minutes and then introduced us to Dr. Jackman. Dr. Jackman is a surgeon and he performed the actual bone marrow aspiration. They reviewed the ultra sound images that Dr. Gillis had taken. They sedated Frappe and placed him in the stocks. There was a horse in there next to him getting shock wave therapy on his leg. Very noisy. They had their ultrasound specialist take their own baseline images of the injured ligament.

After they took the images they began prep work for the bone marrow aspiration. They clipped, prepped and blocked his sternum (between his two front legs). They used ultrasonography to identity the place where the needle should go in. Then they put in this huge needle. It was kind of a big metal rod with a handle on it. It looked very painful but he didn't show any signs of discomfort. He was way stoned though. Then they removed the bone marrow. That part took maybe 10 minutes. I felt like the whole clinic was in there watching. One of the assistants was taking pictures. I thought with her cell phone but Cat said it was a digital camera. Cat took pictures with her iPhone. After they collected the bone marrow, they pulled out the "spicket" and applied a pressure bandage to the area. Frappe was put in a box stall to recover. They said I could take him home in a couple of hours. That was at about 9:30.

We went to visit him and he seemed alert. He was foraging around the stall for leftover scraps of hay. At about 10:30 Charlie came out and said Frappe was doing really well and that he could go home in a half hour or so. They gave him some grass hay to munch on so he was happy. We went to visit with him some more and play with the babies before checking out.

When we arrived home Cat removed the pressure bandage and he wasn't leaking so that was good. He seemed sore in that area of course and a little agitated when she removed the bandages. She looked at the "site" and said it was scabbed over but I didn't want to look. She said it looked fine.

The bone marrow sample was shipped to VetCell's laboratory where stem cells will be extracted and multiplied. In 2-4 weeks the stem cells will be returned to Pioneer for implantation directly into the core of the lesion. Pioneer will call me when they receive word from VetCell that the stuff is shipping. We will probably have 48 hours notice and will make the appointment for him to have the stem cells implanted. . Before they implant the stem cells in the lesion they are going to perform extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) on the area. High energy waves are delivered via a focused beam to the site of the lesion. Doing so is thought to stimulate and recruit various factors to improve the healing process.

Follow-up will be 30 days after that. They will want to do another ultrasound to assess his healing and he is going to have another round of ESWT. He may get a third treatment of ESWT depending on how well he is healing.

Frappe is doing really well. In fact he is feeling quite spirited. Anne is hand walking him daily and I take him out for his hand grazing. The only remaining signs that he had anything done is the shaved spot between his front legs. I will try and do a better job of posting updates.