Photo reference for a painting I am re-doing. I have a painting of Bruno hanging in my living area. A visitor was here a few days ago, and wanted to know how much I wanted for the painting. I told her it was not for sale, but I would be happy to paint another. So I will work on that while waiting to ride.
I have loved horses for as long as I can remember. I drew them, played with plastic figures of horses, rode carousel horses, even "rode" statues of horses. And occasionally I got to be around the real thing. I didn't start riding till I was thirty, when I could afford my own horse. I became much more physically active, and yes, had a lot of accidents. I had a very bad cycling accident when someone drove into me from behind, doing about 50 mph. The next year, I came off a young horse, and she proceeded to buck, with her hind feet pounding down on me. Neither of these incidents were fully addressed medically, so my right hip area has had a lot of abuse and not much care.
The past few years have been especially hard with pain, stiffness ... all of those arthritic symptoms. I have been seeing a yoga therapist who has helped immensely, and I will continue to see her. My physician sent me off to an orthopaedic surgeon who looked at the X-ray, did some manipulation and decided I needed a full hip replacement. He described the surgery and showed me the replacement joint. I went home and gave it some thought. I was totally unprepared to go through that surgery! I started to look for options, and found stem cell therapy. I researched it for several weeks, and then found a clinic near Vancouver that performs the procedure. Three weeks ago, I had the treatment - an autologous, adipose-derived stem cell and platelet-rich plasma injection into the joint area via ultrasound guidance. A few days ago, I had a follow-up injection of PRP. I must say ... so far, so good. I have less pain and more mobility. The hard part is not being able to ride. I suppose I could try, but I think it would be better for those stem cells to get better established in my hip joint. So here I sit, waiting impatiently ... I'll give those busy little cells another few days, and then carefully have a short and gentle ride.
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