October 2012
Karen Lynd and Dandee
Royal Geym Dandee is a 4 year old Arabian/Connemara cross. He suffered trauma to his neck in a pasture accident on 5-11-11, resulting in a transverse process broken off of a mid-cervical vertebra and swelling which caused spinal compression. He suffered severe neurologic complications (ataxia) and could barely walk or stand with stability. My veterinarian gave him a 1% chance of survival. He then injured his left eye due to his instability. He has also suffered Bell's palsy (paralysis) on the left side of his face. This paralysis affected his lips and left eyelid and caused a second ulceration from exposure of the recently healed left eye.
Dandee LOVES his appointments with Kelly. Kelly, who has worked miracles on Dandee, said he had to check twice to make sure he had the right horse because of all the positive changes in the last 3 months! You can see the left side of Dandee's face in the picture. The paralysis of this side of his face is almost healed.
Update on Dandee!
Today, May 11, 2013 is the two year Anniversary of Dandee's near fatal injury. It was just about this time that night that my veterinarian finished treating him after trying to convince me to euthanize him. She gave Dandee a one percent chance of survival and pushed me very hard to let him go.
However, I knew what a fighter he was, and I knew he wanted to live. I knew that he had survived severe neglect and starvation at the hands of another. I had witnessed that night how he fought to live, how he screamed for me when I found him in the pasture and how he struggled to rise on unstable legs with a body that would not cooperate, and how he fell to the ground after fighting to rise as I ran for the house to get my phone. I knew his spirit, and I would not give up on a horse who would not give up on himself. What I didn't know and what Dandee couldn't tell me was that he had run head-on into something, and that he had sustained a severe concussion, had broken a vertebra in his neck, and had compressed and bruised his spinal cord badly.
Future complications would include facial paralysis of the entire left side of his face and lips and two different ulcerations of his left eye. Dandee needed a miracle that night, and God gave us many over the weeks and months that would follow.
Thank you to Kelly Flowers of Equither, who accepted a huge challenge and massaged and adjusted Dandee back to physical health and usefulness. He took a crooked little horse who could not walk a straight line, who could not balance himself, who could barely stop himself once he gained momentum, and he gave him back his life. Kelly also recommended other healers, Dawn Darnell and Betty Boswell, who played important roles in Dandee's recovery as well. I cannot speak highly enough of the role that Kelly played in Dandee's recovery.
