About Me! And You! And Everyone!

[impressedagain]

<sup>So... I'm Katie.
I'm a Sophomore, er... Was a Sophomore. Now I'm gonna be a Junior in highschool.
I LOVE PONIES.
and music.
Horses + music = basically my life.
I've ridden for six years, and I ride both Western and English.
I have a horse.
His nose is on my avatar thingy. He's and 11 year-old, chestnut quarter horse gelding and I love him very, very much.

That's him. His registered name is A Doc N Zip Dude (which I think is really really dumb), but his stable name is Fred.
(Or Frederick Donald, whichever you prefer)
I got him as a rescue horse, he was emaciated and in really bad shape when he came to us. I fell in love, and six months later I bought him. For two years we competed in Western pleasure events... But last october I broke my foot pretty badly and couldn't work with him for three months. When I got able to work with him again, he was acting really sore. We kept a close eye on him but he only started getting worse. He got to the point where he had no feeling on his right side and could barely keep his balance. We think it's EPM.
A vet asked Fred to be his "guinea pig" and try this experimental treatment for EPM, free of charge. We can't afford the regular treatment, so we jumped on the opportunity.
We don't know if it killed the disease or not, but he has equal feeling in both sides now. He gained weight again, and he can walk better now without losing his balance or falling. He still leans though, a lot. and there's a very slim chance that he'll ever ride again.
We're hoping that the treatment killed the disease, but didn't reverse the damage already done... But if we're wrong, the disease could still be affecting him, and this could easily be my last year with him... so that's been really tough to prepare for. We're trying to stay hopeful though.
Yeah... so... That's us. :]</sup>

[poozie]

<sub>Aw, I'm sorry to hear that about your horse. :c I wish you guys the best of luck. <3

Excuse my stupidity, but what is EPM? ^^'

Meh, might as well say some stuff about moi.
I'm a sophomore, was a freshman, in high school. ;3 I'm totally weird. My bud Steven says I'm "one of a kind, you combine sweet and moody and you are funny and smart." <33
Nyea, I am always listening to music. <3 Jeffree Star and Lady Gaga are total sex bombs. ;D
I am a horse-crazy girl who spends her days drawing horses (and sometimes crummy dogs, dragons and soon-to-be humans) and wishing she had one. x3 I do take lessons, English and I'm a wanna be jumper. <3

Meh, I do have pets. Two dogs and two birds. Takiishedoe is my beautiful Akita, my moose. <33 Bubbles is my mom's Beagle..we don't like each other. >>' Fred is my crazy Goffin's Cockatoo and Barney is my grumpy Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot. x3 Yes, they do talk. ;]</sub>

[impressedagain]

<sup>Lol @ Jeffree Star.
But yeah, EPM is a neurological disease they get from eating traces of opossum fecal material, usually from the grass or drinking from ponds, however if you get opossums in the grain silos it can contaminate the grain (which is why peoples sometimes feed "cooked" feed instead of grains or pellets, as a precaution). Over 75% of all the horses in the USA have it, but it remains dormant in them. Only like 5% actually show symptoms of the disease.
Pretty much what happens is there's a protozoa that goes into the bloodstream and attacks the central nervous system and makes lesions on the spinal cord. It can cause paralysis in the face and ears, uncoordination, loss of feeling along one or both sides, muscle weakness, collapse, weight loss, depression, difficulty standing or walking (especially when the head is raised), and (if left untreated) death.
Pretty much what it does is throw their sense of balance completely out of whack, causing them to hold their head tilted or to lean dramatically to one side.

^^ That's Fred, and that's what I'm talking about when I say "leaning".
It's usually curable, but depending on how long it's left untreated the damage may or may not be reversed. It varies from horse to horse.
In Fred's case we don't have the money to treat him, which is why we're doing all sorts of exercises and supplements and "home remedies" to do everything we can. If we do miraculously end up curing him, I'm fairly sure that the damage will be permanent.
He's made a LOT of progress though. He's gone from having no feeling in his back end or along his right side to having equal feeling in both sides. He pricks his ears up now, which is something he could never do before. It's hard to tell if he's getting better or worse though, because EPM is a day-to-day thing. He could be doing fine one day, and the next he could be dead. It's just a guessing game.
That's about the extent of my EPM knowledge right there. I'll shut up now.</sup>

[poozie]

<sub>Oh my god thats terrible. DD: I really hope he gets better. :c I'm glad that he's doing good. x3 I'm sorry. :c

Meh, what's wrong with Jeffree Star? D:</sub>

[impressedagain]

^{nothing, he just makes me giggle. :]}

[poozie]

_{Haha. ;3 I love himm. <33}

[kayli]

wow, i've never heard of such a thing.. that's like amazing to me yet i'm sorry to hear it! thats great he's making progress, though!

- - - -

about me:

i'm Kayli... turned 16 today (weee!)
i live in central texas, it sucks - it never rains //:
i'm going to be a junior in high school
and i play softball in and out of school. been playing since i was 4
i used to barrel race on diablo. but i stopped when we ran out of time, i'm hoping to sell bandit in order to get a new barrel horse and start back into it for fun cause i'm too old to do anything else with it anyway.

[most names are clickies!]

i have 3 horses:
bandit
**whom is forsale. lol
diablo
apache

we've accumulated 5 donkeys..
none really have names, but we have 3 jacks, 1 gelding, and 1 jenny.
and one is a mini siberian ass.. and he is a monster.. he won't be ours long lol
2 boer goats, Fred & Peanut - brothers.
and one meat hen that runs around with them.
We have 5 dogs.
2 heelers, Maggie & Cutter
1 black mouth cur, Kacey
1 schnauzer, Lexi
1 english bulldog, Tillman
and a mexican conure, Jack who is the meanest thing to ever live in a cage lol. (&no, sadly he doesn't talk.. he just squawks... really loud.)

[/size]

[poozie]

_{Ahh! You're pets are so cute! x3 Why are you selling Bandit? He's really pretty. *o* I know thats not a reason to keep a horse, just saying. xD What breeds are your horses? Tehe I love hearing about other people's horses cause I don't have any real ones to tell about. xP}

[kayli]

bc i dont have time to get him really broke..

Bandit is a registered APHA
Diablo is a Quarter Horse
Apache is AQHA Racing Stock, he used to be a bucking horse but we worked him out of it.