Numb Toes
I’ve been riding a lot recently………………..well, a lot for me.
I’ve been Hunting more than I ever have in the past. Body and horse willing, I intend to keep up this agenda.
Any day now the sore body and sore muscles and sore joints should start subsiding………………….any day now………………..any day now.
I don’t understand why some of my toes on my feet are remaining numb———–to varying degrees………………depending on which toe.
My boots are very stiff. They were bargain basement boots over fifteen years ago. They have these really stiff wrinkles around the lower leg and ankles that don’t correspond to my foot or leg……………….but the boots look pretty.
I know riding boots aren’t hiking boots. They are meant for riding/not walking. But come on, these boots are Spanish Inquisition boots.
They are moderately less painful when I am in the saddle, but when I’m standing and weight-bearing………………they are crippling……………..but they look pretty.
I think the numb toes come because I am jamming my foot down onto the floor of the stirrup iron out of sheer panic and fright-and-flight-fear………………….something tells me this pain is because I’ve over-done this whole “keep your weight on the balls of your feet” thing.
I think my fear factor is over-doing the amount of pressure that is healthy for the blood circulation to my feet, in my overly-stiff, bare-bones-basic-boots.
Which are pretty.
So, my tootsies are regularly in isometric ischemia for over three hours every time I ride. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Can’t be good… Almost geisha-like.
No wonder the poor little piggies are numb. Not blue. (yet) Just sense-less.
I wonder if I keep this up, if some of them will fall off?
That’ll put a dent in the pedi part of any mani-pedi.
………………..Too cavalier, you say? I suppose so………………..
I’ll have to give this one some serious thought.
I could be a better rider, and not panic and cut off all of the circulation in my lower legs and feet while in the saddle.
Maybe I could stretch the boots and get those nasty rigid, glacial folds out of the ankle area?
Maybe I could neatsfoot oil the living daylights out of them and make them softer. (And have I already covered the history of neatsfoot oil?)-(Neat is an Olde Worlde name for cattle…………….hence, oil derived from the rendering of the legs and feet of cattle———-after they didn’t need them anymore.)
I’d have to do the oiling, but from the inside out, because the outside of an English riding boot has a shiny, hard finish………………..Gotta think this one through…………………..maybe Pam spray?
It’s sounding like it’s time for my local cobbler’s help.
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Here’s something that’s sad and funny at the same time.
I have to be really careful when pulling off my boots after riding/after the swelling/and after the numbness. I coerce one of my daughters to pull them off.
I have to really concentrate and keep my leg muscles rigid to hold my artificial knee and hip joints together…
If I relax my leg muscles too much, I can feel the joints distend and wobble and click…………………………….that can’t be good.
Um, don’t tell my Orthopedic Surgeons that one either.
I’m improving (no I’m not) but, I’m still getting stuck on the cantel part of the saddle when I’m floundering to throw my right leg over the back of the saddle, in order to get off. I know it’s weakness, and exhaustion, and leg numbness………………..now isn’t that just quite the trifecta!
Even though Violet was very instrumental in my first involuntary twirling dismount (since joint replacements), she has been a really good and predictable Hunt Horse for me so far this season. She’s been really good.
She waits and stands patiently for me while I am flopping and skooching and slithering off of her after a Hunt……………spurs jabbing her/heels & toes poking her, my belt buckle etching both of us.
She’s a good pony.
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I have a private confession to make to Pascal.
Pascal, swear you’ll keep it a secret…………….shhhhhh.
Only Lola observed this recent dismounting faux pas.
Well…………..we were at the side of the horse trailer after one of the recent Hunts. I was reluctantly whining because I knew I was going to have to get off eventually and everything was going to hurt when I landed on the the ground………………..plus, my feet were numb.
So, I finally gave up moaning and dismounted. I flailed and wobbled and slithered my way down using the opposite stirrup leather across the top of the saddle’s seat (hitting myself in the head with the stirrup iron) in order to help me in my cliff-face repel down Violet’s side.
All would have been fine……………..if the girth wasn’t loose………………….it was. Vi had lost weight during the Hunt.
And so, there I am again looking up at the underside of the muddy belly of a different Clydesdale…………………..
There appears to be a pattern here……………….
And there was a great deal of laughing. Both Lola and I couldn’t take any of this seriously. I was too tired. Violet was too tired. Lola thought it was hysterical. It was just too absurd.
So with Lola’s help, we untacked poor old Violet from her upside down saddle. (Note to self: It’s not that easy unbuckling a saddle when it is hanging under a horse’s belly.)
………………………Ruby’s and Violet’s hay bags were up. Their water was available.
So………………..Tra La……………….off to the Tea we went.
………………………A little while later we returned to load horses and drive home. Both guys were fine. Their hay bags were empty. Their water had been sipped on. They were obviously tired and relaxing and napping……………………..
However, during the saddle-slip-hysteria, I had neglected and forgotten to remove Violet’s bridle, OR put her halter back on, OR even tie her off to the trailer. She was just standing there out of her own good-ness.
Again, not one of my prouder moments……………………………(there’s a pattern emerging with those too, aren’t there).
She just stood there on her own, maturely munching, awaiting her errant rider’s return.
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“Sage Wisdom” (from Ester),
Several years ago, she told me that you could tell a really good Hunt Horse, by one that will stand quietly at the side of a trailer, not bolt at the sound of a champagne bottle opening, and not flinch if the cork happens to get hit with between the eyes……………………………………I think Violet is well on her way to passing that test.
