the big horse’s spell. “Dennis was not a horse per- son but he certainly connected with Gospel. They became best friends,” Christina says. “He would take Gospel for a walk each night when he got home from work. Gospel would get so excited that he’d wait for Dennis at the gate, twisting his head and making what we called his funny ‘beg- ging face.’” Each evening, Dennis would be greeted with the same deep ‘whuh huh huh huh huh’ from Gospel that Christina had been greeted with for so long.
New Challenges
Gospel’s journey wasn’t quite over, however. After several years of retirement spent relaxing in his pasture at their farm, by now a small boarding facility, Gospel began to limp again. X-rays revealed that the coffin bone, locat- ed inside the foot and held in place by surrounding tissue, was being pulled down – probably because of scar tissue that had built up over time around the site of the incision when the tendon was cut. After everything she had been through with this horse, this was unbeliev- able news, but she wasn’t prepared to give up yet.
“I talked to everybody to try to find a solution. I became obsessed with my research and bought books and poured over them. I borrowed my trainer’s therapeutic ultrasound machine when I heard about it and tried it, combined with a series of stretches. But nothing was improv- ing his condition. We couldn’t get Gospel Hour stabilized and com- fortable,” she explains.
Husband and Mouse Pad to the Rescue
“It didn’t occur to us that this unique therapy might grow into a viable business."
“I was explaining my plight to a girlfriend, when my husband Dennis overheard me discussing the lack of availability and affordability for this light technol- ogy. Being an engineer, Dennis suddenly volun- teered that perhaps he could custom-design some kind of light therapy for Gospel.” With much antici- pation, Christina watched as Dennis persevered studying all the research and information she had collected. After just a few days of detailed emailed questions and answers about esoteric but impor- tant topics like the appropriate wavelength and the proper beam angle for the LED, Dennis reported that he could with confidence make her what she needed. He placed an order for the LEDs and neoprene needed to construct his own light thera- py pad.
At this point, both the Regulis knew they were racing against time. If Gospel Hour’s coffin bone pulled down far enough to puncture the sole of the hoof, there would be no way to save him. Their vet told them regret- fully that there were no treat- ments left to try. Once again, he recommended euthanasia.
“When the neoprene didn’t come in on time, Dennis could- n’t wait any longer. He took his computer’s mouse pad off his desk, wired it with the LEDs, and used duct tape to cover the wires to then wrap around Gospel Hour’s leg. The neoprene came in within a few days, but
“Finally, I heard about light therapy and started researching this unusual treat- ment. When you have tissue that’s dam- aged, those cells are starved for energy. The energy from the light starts the heal- ing process more quickly than the body can on its own,” Christina explains. “It sounded promising, but it was also very expensive. When I considered pur- chasing one, I found that a small LED (light-emit- ting diode) device alone was $1,500. The device was a mere one and a half inches in diameter, and that was just too much money to experiment with.”
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we didn’t feel we had time to waste,” Christina remembers.
Hope Returns
What came next, she says, felt like a
miracle. Twice a day, Christina treated
Gospel with her “husband-invented light pad” wrapped around his leg. She moved the pad up and down the leg, front and back, treating each spot for five minutes at a time and praying that this new therapy was having some effect on the ten- don. While she focused most of her attention on the old incision site where the scar tissue had built up, she decided to treat the whole leg. There was nothing, she felt, to lose with this approach.
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