What I'm Thankful For: Finding the Bright Side of Intermittent Blindness

Hello, old sports!

The sun is bright, the grass is green, and Spode is here. Life is good!

It's been a while since one of my more serious blog posts, hasn't it? The downside of Spode being at school--I have lots more time for reflecting, but less time to write it down.

Spode's home again this weekend and we had a nice long spell together. 5 day weekends are the best, and I'm thankful for it! But you know, it's really easy to be thankful for the good things in life. I'm thankful for treats, Spode, brushing sessions, and green grass every day. But I've been thinking that perhaps Thanksgiving should be the time when you give thanks for the aspects of your life that aren't so obviously good. And when you look at me, you know immediately what that aspect is, right?

Go on, I'll give you one guess.

When Spode and I first met when I was just a 2 year old, my eyes were fine. We spent the initial 6 months of our partnership as any other horse and girl would. There were trials, errors, and successes. There were forward steps and backwards steps. There was a transition time from Zoodles to me, as there would be with any new horse.

Then December came, and so did my initial bout of Uveitis. Suddenly I was a horse with special needs. A horse with a problem. And Spode was an owner with a burden.
There was pain and affected vision, but you know what else I got? A whole lot of love that I wouldn't have gotten so fast if it weren't for this auto-immune disease of mine. The time for transitioning and building trust slowly over months was over. I needed Spode now. And Spode, who had needed me from the start, finally got the whole me.

Love you to the moon and back.

What's your obsession with my nose, kiddo? 

That might seem backward. The time of trials and tests should be during the disease and not when I'm healthy, right? But Spode is a little funny. I think a part of her needed a horse who needed her. I think she needed to feel that she had a job to do for me, and that job would require a whole lot of her: a lot of love, a lot of money (sorry about that) and a lot of hurt. And that's a good thing. It's not that she wouldn't have loved me in the same way if I weren't a horse with a disability (horse first language please!), it's just that it would have taken longer for this relationship to happen. There was no time for wondering if I was going to be anything like Zoo was, no time for questioning if we were really the right fit for each other in terms of our personalities. No--uveitis is fast and detrimental. She needed to decide those things right away and has had to keep deciding with every new problem that arises (oh yes, believe me, there's quite the list after 2 years). How far are you willing to go for this new friend of 6 months? How much stress, sadness, and anxiety are you willing to accept in exchange for having me around? Does your answer depend on your relationship? On the length of time you've called me your friend? Maybe. I think for Spode it does.

Or maybe it depends on how much I make you laugh, Spode

So she made the decision then. The New Year started, and that was it. Any lengths. It was all or nothing for Spode. It has to be that way. Either you end the pain, or you do everything you can to ease it. Going halfway doesn't work. As soon as she started treating my eyes and looking into surgical options, our dynamic completely changed. I increasingly relied on her, and she gave her whole self in return. It was give and take though, because I gave back by trusting her and bonding with her. That's not to say our relationship is perfect and never tested. It's not, but there's something there that seems to underly every interaction now. We bounce back faster after our trials and tests. Today was a bit of a rough day, in fact, but we're both learning from each other constantly. As a teacher, I know Spode is thankful for all learning moments. It's always a teachable moment!

Having this disease and requiring those constant decision meant that Spode could move past some of her grief, because I needed her to stop holding back on me now that I was sick. Not that she was holding back on purpose, but if you're not completely needed, I don't think you necessarily put your whole heart into someone. Why would you--you don't know if it's worth the risk yet. It's a risk because there's always pain, and it means you're allowing yourself to grieve once more in a new way. Think about that, old sports. You hold back from someone new because you know exactly how painful it is to lose the person you care for. It takes a lot to put yourself at risk of going through that same process again. It's different with an animal as well, because we have shorter life spans than humans do. Pain is a certainty with us, not just a possibility. How do you lessen the pain? By not giving everything. If you hold back, that piece of you won't feel the impact of the pain. If you throw yourself into it, all of you is going to get hurt in the end.

That's pretty big, huh? It's why it takes so long to fall completely in love, usually. But if you have a disease like mine, everything goes into fast forward. And I've been lucky. I have been relatively pain free lately thanks to my eye implants. The progression of my disease changed substantially as a result. But all those little decisions along the way meant Spode had to reaffirm that she was 100% behind me. I'm thankful for my disease for doing that. For making her fall in love even more.

I'm thankful for my disease because I have a bond with Spode that means she can be gone for 2 weeks, hop on me with one eye blind and the other getting worse, and we can just go. That being said, it's trickier without her here all the time. Today's ride certainly reflected that. I am not as trusting of her as I was when she was around consistently, but it's all part of the same process and it's making us better. You need some tests to improve and refocus on the important parts. We both need remaining of what matters the most, sometimes.

It's not about the dressage all the time. It's about the journey you take and the partnership you build to get there. 

Holy moly, when did we grow up so fast? I'm looking pretty stocky here! Maybe I need to go on a weight loss regime...

We'll work on that later. For now I need to eat all these apples before the frost comes!!

I'm thankful for my disease for making Spode more aware of herself and how she interacts with me. I have not had the easiest of lives despite my young age. But I've got a friend for life because of it, special needs and all. I'm sure I've made her a better teacher because of it. Still, I doubt she'll be bringing that up in any teaching interviews... Just imagine! Even without explicitly talking about it though, we've both changed because of my eye issues, and more and more I'm "seeing" that it's a change for the better in every way. I never thought I'd be thankful for my inability to see clearly or my intermittent left eye sight. But I really am, in a way. We both are.

Love is blindness, indeed. And yes, I'm thankful for all those sympathy treats and hugs I get too! What, you didn't think was going to be entirely profound and thoughtful, did you? Give me a break--I am a horse, after all! Now leave me alone--I wasted precious grazing time by writing all that. Spode's back again next weekend. I need to build up my energy!

Until later, Old Sports.

Jay.