The Brochure on Healing My Heart: Friends Help Us So Much

Today I'm going to update you on where things are and give you well, give you some information about what's been going on. I think this is week six since we've lost Alice and in some ways I do feel stronger. In some ways I do feel stronger, in some ways it's still very difficult, and I know that it will be difficult for a long go to sleep and our cat, bubby, started exhibiting signs of having issues urinating Again. He had been going in and out of all of his litter boxes three that he uses and not producing much urine, not crying as he's done sometimes in the past, but it was obviously going to be an issue for him. He was restless and I think it was about 1230 at night, and it was. I think it was about 1230 at night. So I gathered up my courage and took him over to the emergency vet. We had just been there first weekend in April, so this is the shortest amount of time between visits and we have a follow-up with the internal medicine team in about four weeks, I think, to recheck his diabetes and his asthma. He's got some issues going on. Anyway, I took him in and the concern is always that their urinary tract is blocked and he wasn't blocked but they did check him out. But they always have other emergency cases. So when you go in they said last night that there was a three to four hour wait turnaround time and I think it was about three hours. So I think I got out lucky, lucky.

I was pretty tired. I got home around 4 am and usually that wouldn't be an issue for me, but I did have stuff to do today so I had to kind of revamp that because I just needed to sleep. I was just so exhausted and you get to a point when you feel like you've been stretching yourself a little too thin and you have to pull back a little bit. So that's what I did today, or I'm doing today. I still feel a little out of sorts. But brought Bubby home. He's been eating. He's always a little pissed off or very pissed off when I bring him back from the vet. And they had brought him out in his carrier and he still had his little cone collar on in the carrier and I said, can we take that off? And so we went into a room and he was kind, you know, you know kind of making noises like don't even think about touching me. But we did get it off with a hiss at the end and I think he was happier and more comfortable going home that way. So so far, so good. He's, you know, really missing Dallas, and I was sitting here the other night watching YouTube.

Sometimes, when I just have a few minutes and I want to rest and I want to just relax, I will watch some music videos on YouTube and be reminded of 80s music and hair bands and some of my favorite songs, and so and you can tell that my voice is tired today right, I'm trying, this is the best I've got right now. Anyway, I was watching some videos and, um, and I wasn't tired that day, I wasn't as tired as I am today. You know how, when you're tired, you everything is a little bit extra raw. So the 38th special video came on. What if I'd been the one and I love the song, love 38 Special.

But in the video they have parts where there's herds of horses running through a field and that just got me, that just really was a trigger for me and I started to get really upset. So I thought about one of my friends from the barn who had lost her horse, mason, quite a while ago, several years ago. I didn't realize it had been seven years Seems like it's only been three or four, but it's been seven and I hadn't touched base with her in a while. And so I texted her and I said, how did you even get through the loss of Mason? And said some other things. And she ended up calling me right away and we talked for a while and I was pretty bad off. I was crying and she talked about her horse and she knew, of course she knew my horse, her horse.

Mason and Dallas were like best friends kind of in the barn world. Dallas loved to visit with Mason and so if he was out and he saw Mason coming towards him, he'd run over to visit with Mason and touch him with his mouth. Mason taught him to play tug-of-war with the lead ropes. It was very cute. I think Debbie taught him too, but anyway, we say Mason taught him. Mason and Dallas looked a lot alike and Mason and Dallas looked a lot alike.

So when Mason died of cancer it was hard on us too. Anyway, we talked for a while and I was pretty upset. But you know what, after we talked I realized that just talking it through with somebody that really understood made me feel a lot better. And I do feel a lot better. I'm still sad, but I feel a lot better and I've, you know, kind of pushed all those feelings aside, but talking it through with somebody else I mean I talked with Bill about it. Whenever the subject comes up or I feel like I can't, you know, keep it in anymore, but talking with somebody else that understood it really helped me a lot and she really was able to encapsulate in words how it is to lose a horse, which is different. If you haven't had a horse. It's hard to understand the relationship that you have, that you can build with a horse. Certainly, 23 years is a long time. I've had dogs and cats and bunnies and I've had great relationships with them, but the relationship that I had with Dallas was different and it was deeper in a lot of ways. So there's that.

I think it was about two weeks ago I heard from a friend about some horses and dogs that were confiscated in a rescue I guess attempt rescue with an animal shelter out about 85 miles from here, and it was an abuse or neglect situation. I'm not sure exactly how to categorize that, but there were 60 horses and 40 dogs that were confiscated. The information was that most of the horses and the dogs were going to be put up for adoption Because we're big on rescuing adopt, don't shop Bill and I thought that this would be possibly a good option, a good avenue to find another horse. I questioned whether it's too early, whether it's too emotional even to just go see the horses, whether I would be able to do this, but in the end we felt like it would be a good experience to just, if nothing else, have something to compare it to. I tried to because the way LA traffic is. I tried to because the way LA traffic is it was going to take us about two hours just to get there and the shelters open limited hours every day. So I tried to get some information before going, but the information that I could get was very limited. They said that most of the horses were mares with foals. They didn't really categorize what the rest of the horses were and I asked other questions, but those other questions weren't answered.

So we went out in this past week and fought traffic and we got out there. Very nice facility, looks fairly new, spacious, went out there, had to go way, way, way in the back and there's nobody out there and we couldn't weigh in the back and we couldn't get close to the horses and saw that there were a lot of foals. So found somebody to talk to and it turns out that all the horses that are going to be up for adoption in this round are mares with foals, except for one. There's one mare that's by herself, but the caveat is that none of them have been used to being handled. Used to being handled, which means that you can't touch them, you can't put a halter on them, you can't lead them, you can't say come here, poor C, so you can't do a vet check. I mean, I'm not sure how they've had their hooves or their feet trimmed or cared for, however that works. And she said that we had to assume that all of the mares were also pregnant with an additional foal.

All the foals had to go with the mares that they're paired up with, so it's a twofer situation. Now the stall that we have is a stall for one horse, and the horse that we would have to adopt would have to be a fairly handable Well, you'd have to be able to handle the horse. I'm not even going to go there, I'm too tired. I can't get that word. So that was a little disappointing. The other horses that are going to become available because they had limited space there, they had probably about let's see two, four, six, maybe 12 mares there and then they had the foals with them. So the other horses that are going to come in once they adopt out.

These horses are stallions, which is equally challenging in a horse stabling community space like ours, and again, those horses are not able to be handled right now by humans. So what they did was they had to round them up with boards and put them in the trailers together. They had basically, quote unquote cowboys ranch hands, come on horseback and get the horses in the trailers. So no geldings, no geldings. So it makes you think about how the person or people that had this property where the horses were, what their thinking was, what their motivation was and why they kept all these animals like this and what they did with the geldings.

So anyway, that was kind of a dead end for us and I was okay while I was there, but then when we left I got upset because I just started thinking about Dallas and you know why is he gone and how much I miss him and everything, and it was just another difficult thing, but it's just another reminder of loss. And it's just another reminder of loss. But it was also hard to be at the animal shelter because, you know, we saw a lot of dogs and of course I'd love to take them all home. The woman that spoke with us and gave us a lot of information also told us, you know, that they actively euthanize animals three times a week and it's heartbreaking, it's absolutely heartbreaking. But I have to remember that we have saved a dog and a cat that are here now, and there's a limit to what we can handle, manage what we can handle, manage, and we have to just be content with that.

So, anyway, adopt, don't shop. That's my motto. So I hope that. Well, at least I'm not crying. So, folks, that's all I've got for today. I hope you have a great week and thanks again for listening and for sticking with me through this journey. And again, I'm not using the intro and outro music because it's just hard to feel that sense of perkiness right now. But I'm getting there, I think. And what's the phrase? Fake it till you make it. I don't even think I'm right there yet, but I'm getting closer. Think I'm right there yet, but I'm getting closer. So thank you, thank you everyone, for your support, and next week I'll tackle another topic, I'll update you and I hope you'll join me.