Halloween Throwback: A photo essay

Picture, if you will, a decade younger me. It was 2008. I was living in Florida, recently married, just out of grad school, looking for a job, and spending time with my friend Cheri.

She had four horses, Stella, Blanche, Gwyn and Nyx at her house. We had met through the equestrian group on Livejournal (remember that?) and hit it off immediately. Her husband was a NASA engineer, mine was a NASA engineer. We were both flighty, horse obsessed and despite the fact that she is literally old enough to be my mother (her daughter and I are the same age) we were best friends and still are to this day. We had a standing TV and dinner night together at their house every week to watch House and Lie to Me and we played Dungeons and Dragons on the weekends. She and I would ride together at night because that's when it wasn't ridiculously hot and we lived for the full moon nights to ride through the lovely scented orange groves. I would ride Stella and she would ride Blanche, and eventually we'd pony the babies (Gwyn and Nyx) during the rides too.

Life was fantastic.

Below  this cut is lots of medical talk, euthanasia and very very graphic images

Actually: VERY GRAPHIC IMAGES BEHIND THIS CUT.

I don't want anyone to be taken by surprise.