Friday, March 28, 2014

Getting Back to Work at Windurra

After a marathon drive home from Southern Pines on Sunday night I checked into Christiana Hospital, where some of the top orthopedic surgeons in Delaware performed a routine operation on my tibia. They put a titanium rod down the length of my bone and popped in a couple of screws top and bottom to hold everything in place. 

Surgery
  



Dr. Michael Principe was so confident about his job he didn’t even put a cast on there. It’s totally stable and he said I should get nearly normal use out of it in two to three weeks.

The finished product
 I’m taking it day by day and not ruling anything out, so it remains to be seen whether I’ll be fit to ride at Rolex.  Luckily at the moment I feel like I’m very fit and light in my body weight, due to the hard work I've put in so far this year, so it’s mainly a question of whether my leg will be strong enough. I’ll be starting physical rehab for the leg sometime soon.

Our house still looks a bit like a hospital ward.  Silva’s mum Christa is still over from Germany as our in-house nurse and she’s a great cook and keeping everything in ship shape. It's also great emotional support for Silva, who’s undergoing 6-7 hours of therapy every day, then coming home to sleep.

Staying Strong

Silva at Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital
 Silva is slowly getting to a point where she can start teaching a couple of lessons each day, and thanks to her girls, all of her horses are in work and looking in good form.

Silva Teaching Again!
 We count ourselves very lucky that we have an awesome, hardworking and dedicated staff; Caitlin’s work load has increased a bit and I’ve got a couple of young riders doing a fantastic job, and I’m thankful to show jumper Mike Walton for coming over and jumping a number of the horses for me. 

We’ve got all the four-star horses in full fitness mode; they went swimming at Mountain Meadows on Wednesday afternoon and my guys galloped them up the mountain this morning.  Obviously I’m keeping an eye on how they’re doing, and teaching the odd lesson here and there. With Silva’s therapy each day, and my keeping an eye on my horses and teaching the odd lesson, we’re busy every day, but I’m enjoying being on cruise control for now, and spending what time I can hanging out on the couch with Silva.

-Boyd


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