Calabar gets twitchy

I'm trying not to worry. I'm trying not to be terrified and turn this into something bigger than it is. I'm trying not to direct energy into something negative.

But I am worried. And vaguely terrified. And still trying not to send energy down this path.

Back in July, when we were up at Slide playing with cows, Calabar had a spasm of sorts. He started twitching--like a super bad fly twitch--and shaking his head, almost violently, but gave me time to get off and was fine after that. At the time, we attributed it to too much excitement and him needing to let go of some energy.

But now it's happened two (maybe three? I try not to count) more times in less stressful situations.

It's not predictable, really. I can go for an hour lesson, working hard, and he's fine. I can get on him and walk and trot lightly for five minutes and it happens.

I don't even want to Google it because I'm sure there are all kinds of horrid things this could be, many of them incurable "put him out to pasture" things. And that is somewhere my heart is no where near ready to go.

God I love this horse.

My very first step was to contact Karen, our wonder-masseuse, to get her opinion and have her come out as soon as she can. She thinks it sounds like C1 or C2 and gave me some things to test, so I did. I put my hand behind his cheek and moved his big, brown head from one side to the other to see if there was any stiffness. There is, on the right side in particular. No heat in the joint, but tightness abounds.

In my perfect world, he'd be doing it to get out of work. But he doesn't do it all the time and when it happens, he is very agitated and clingy afterwards. He's a good actor, but that would be an Oscar-caliber (pun intended) performance.

I can't afford a lot of vet care. I can't afford a lot of tests. I'm not even sure I'd put him through it even if I could, knowing that if it's bad enough for tests, bad enough that Karen can't sense it (and help me fix it), there isn't much I can do but turn him out.

I have put this post off for over a month because I know all of my three readers can tell me lots of things I may not be ready to hear. For my sake, just send good energy to Bar. Or tell me I'm being silly. I can deal with that just fine.

We're going for a trail ride this weekend, both because we all need to and to see if anything happens.

I really, really hope I'm over-reacting, or that it's a relatively easily cure.

The alternative makes it too hard to breathe.