It’s been over two months, ya’ll. Two months since, out of nowhere, both my wrists felt like they’d been sprained. I had to instantly stop milking and have Christine take over. I’ve milked maybe twice since then instead of every day. It’s been very heartbreaking, really, if I had time to dwell on it, which I don’t. Milking has been my favorite part of homesteading from Day 1. It’s bonding with the goats, it’s meditative, it’s soothing. It’s a chance to breathe.
Christine has been a trooper. She’s not complained about it; she’s just taken over with the milking and traded me some of her old chores.
I haven’t just been sitting around crying about it. I made a doctor’s appointment which took a month to get and then after that got a referral to physical therapy.
Now, I’ve gone to PT in the past for knee pain. And I’ve watched my daughter have PT appointments for the past 8 years of her life. So, nothing new here.
Except I’ve struck gold. This PT is a hero. First of all, he understands that patients don’t want to go to PT the rest of their lives; we want to get better and not need PT! He understands focusing on the root cause rather than what may appear to be the problem. He’s thorough in every way…in the past I was just thrown on a bike for my knee and then got a few exercises and a kick out the door.
I’ve been five times so far and am healing! He massages, manipulates, gives me exercises, spends time getting to know my pain by talking to me and asking me questions, works on posture, uses heat packs, and brings out the tens unit.
What he’s discovered is that the root problem is not my wrists. The problem: my neck and shoulders. Posture issues made worse by milking and breadmaking and carrying children.
So he’s been taping up my back, working on things to get my shoulders in better alignment, etc. But this week we’ve prepared for my 4 day in a row milkings, so here’s my beautiful PT “art”. I did NOT pick out the print and yes it’s tripping me out to look down and think I have arm tattoos for a split second. I’ve gotten a lot of comments already! What do you think? Well, regardless of what anyone thinks, I am just happy that it seems to be helping.
I had pain right after milking Kissy but the pain went away after milking Bridget and Dollop. I’m so hopeful!
I’m also reminded in all of this that a dairy I visited once had a milkstand that cranked up and down to various heights. She recommended it but at the time I thought it was out of budget. After this whole nightmare with pain I’m wondering if it would be worth it! The issue is that the goats are short and the stand is therefore rather short. I’m tall and my legs don’t fit under the stand; I have to turn them to the side while I face mostly forward; not great for my back! And then the stand is so low that I also have to hunch over to see what I’m doing. It’s no wonder I have pain. But I don’t know how I was fine from June to October! What changed? Only the bread baking really.
I’m a work in progress. Hopefully some day I can milk regularly again. Our new goat arrives next week! It’s taken a while because we had to wait for her to go into heat so the breeder could breed her with a buck she has.
Also, 4 days ago Bridget surprised us by going into heat! Whoops, she wasn’t pregnant after all! So we had to re-breed her. Hoping it took this time! None of the other 3 have gone back into heat that we’ve noticed. I went ahead and bought some goat pee sticks, yes, there’s such a thing. Ultrasounds weren’t an option in our area (the vet doesn’t have a mobile machine so we’d have to bring our goats in…no thanks!). Collecting urine from 5 goats should be an adventure.
Last week, we also discovered something rather stressful. Our littlest goat, Mustachia, wasn’t acting like her usual self. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong. We ran a fecal on her to find out she had a bad case of coccidia (a parasite). Parasites can kill goats very quickly. This was on us for not being better at checking on them. We had been doing our weekly dosage of herbal wormer but the eyelids have never been great on a few of our goats and I should have taken this more seriously. Soon after she acted weird her little sister Mooey joined her with feeling “off.” We checked eyelids and wormed a few others; not just a regular dosage but every 4 hours of herbs. Day and night. Yes, it’s been very time consuming and stressful. We’ve been worried sick and feeling ever so guilty. About 4 days later one of our healthiest goats who has NEVER had anything but salmon pink colored eyelids (a sign of a parasite-free goat) got very sick with diarrhea. UGH! Also a sign of worms. I paid for an herbal goat management course online to make sure I was doing everything I could be for all the girls. (The 3 bucks have had bright red eyelids the whole time; they’re very healthy!). I learned in this course that I’ve not been checking eyelids properly. This is news bc every Youtube video and breeder has checked them the way I do.
According to a vet who specializes in parasite management, the correct way is:
1. Pull the top eyelid down over the eyeball.
2. Push gently onto the top eyelid/eyeball.
3. With the other hand, pull the lower eyelid down which makes it pop out further than it would without the first two steps I’d not previously heard of.
4. Compare color to FAMACHA chart.
Doing it this way produces a different color than when you just yank the lower lid down.
I’m learning. Mistakes can be expected but I pray my mistakes don’t cause death. The goats perked up 3 days ago and have been seeming almost back to normal. We are using Land of Havilah parasite formula as well as her GI Back on Tract product which is made of charcoal, psyllium, slippery elm, and other herbs to help the stomach as the wormer can be harsh on them. I am hoping they continue to do better and fully recover.