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El Rojo Grande |
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Recently I bought an 11 year old, trained mustang to ride for enjoyment and on the trails for medical therapy and conditioning for my Cystic Fibrosis (CF).
I had a double lung transplant on Thanksgiving Day of 2000. At the time of my transplant, I was in ICU for 6 months as a result of complications with the transplant. I was told that other organs in me wanted to shut down from the trauma related to such a serious surgery.
Prior to that, I had 43 surgeries with 4 of them being life threatening, emergency needed surgeries due to CF. I have also participated in many different medical studies for new drugs and treatments for people with CF.
In July of this past year, I lost my beautiful wife of 12 years to pancreatic cancer. My wife spent the entire year of 2005 in a chair next to me at Providence Hood River Hospital. She was doing chemo therapy while I spent most of that same year doing IV therapy for several different infections of my own. I think we were the only married couple on the planet who were both doing infusion therapy at the same time and in the same place! In July of 2005, my wife JeNiene passed away from her illness.
A nurse, working at Providence who is an extremely great friend and a member of Back Country Horseman Washington (BCHW), took me on a horse ride up Buck Creek Trail in the Northwest Lake area. We rode the trail for about one hour that day and it was the most important “time out” day that I had in about 5 years! I was able to forget EVERYTHING!
The very next day after that ride I made a commitment to myself that I was going to find and buy a horse of my own! Almost everyone that I knew thought I was out of my mind, including the nurses and the doctors at the hospital and that it was the last thing on the planet that I should do!
I looked at a lot of horses and after awhile I could not remember one from the other. Finally, one night I was looking at Dreamhorse Classifieds and saw an 11 year old mustang for sale. A photo showed the horse with his owner sitting on him, who looked exactly like I did, and I said THAT’s my horse! I called the owner several times and bought EL ROJO GRANDE a couple weeks later. The rest is history.
On March 25, I joined BCHW and went on the first season opening ride at Glenwood, Washington to Outlook Falls. What a ride! The people and the ride were exactly as a dream come true for me! I had the most fun that I’ve had in my entire life!
With my transplant issues and CF, it was a very unsure future for me on a horse. Based on all of the opinions, it was especially true for a somewhat stubborn rider on a mustang. They said I couldn’t do it!
Riding a horse has done for my pain issues like no other pain medication could do for me. I have managed to lower my pain drugs by about 40 percent and most of the lower back pain I have had for many years is gone. Last week I wanted to go over to the hospital and tell all of my ill friends to go find a horse AND RIDE!
While there have been extreme advances in the medical field, which is why I am here and very much alive, there are still many things that doctors, drugs and technology cannot help people with. The thing I found is that animals, specifically my horse El Rojo Grande, can fill that gap. AND IN A BIG WAY!
I look forward to this summer with the BCHW and all the great times ahead. Trail clearing and the camaraderie of other horse lovers is something that everybody should have the opportunity to enjoy. I feel very fortunate to get out of bed every day I can and now especially with the BCHW fulfilling a long time dream of mine.