Touch A Prince and Kim Ride Again

I'd like to offer up a hallelujah for effects of the acupuncture treatments!  Yesterday I had my second treatment to address the crippling nerve pain I've been dealing with in my left leg which has confined me to bed for the past month.  This treatment was not as intense as the first.  The doctor used fewer needles and didn't leave them in nearly as long.  I still felt pretty heavily sedated afterwards, which the doctor said was unsurprising because of the old brain injury I have.  I had pins and needles all down my leg the rest of the day and I had to sleep for several hours after the treatment, but otherwise felt the same.  The doctor promised that the next day would be a good one.

This morning sure has been good!  Some friends came over to do the morning feeding for the horses, and helped me get back on a horse.   Because he is such a solid citizen, I decided to ride Touch A Prince for my first ride of 2016.  I groomed him a little, which felt like a giant victory to me since I haven't been able to lift my hands past my waist without debilitating pain for a month.  Sara cleaned his hooves for me, and I put the bareback pad on him as well as his hackamore.  I skipped the saddle because I can't yet lift even the postage stamp sized jumping saddle, but the fabric bareback pad worked fine.

With a little help from my other friend Kim I climbed on his back, then Touch A Prince and I walked down to the arena.  He was so well behaved, just moseyed around the arena once each direction. He did bobble a little when we walked past a deeper spot of sand in the arena, he really wanted to roll.  I caught him before he got all the way down, though, and we finished our lap that direction.

Because he had been so well behaved when he obviously wanted to roll, after I carefully dismounted we removed his tack and let him play in the arena.  He rolled and rolled in the sand, then bucked and ran all over.  We three humans watching took a moment to appreciate his benevolent good sense, feeling grateful that he was so quiet with me in my fragile state when he was actually so full of beans.

Some video of Touch A Prince rolling can be seen here:
https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=w_H6GnP3Css

Now that I'm horizontal back in bed, I'm very tired.  I definitely have some tingling down my leg, and some muscle spasms in my lower back on the left.  But what a dramatic improvement from before the acupuncture.  A week ago I wasn't even able to stand for two minutes, and after two treatments of acupuncture to directly affect my nerves and nervous system, today I rode Touch A Prince to the arena and for two laps around.  He is such a good citizen and I'm so pleased that there is finally some change in my body in the right direction.  Perhaps I may yet avoid a second back surgery and we can still go represent OTTBs at the horse expo in Denver in March.