Vitelle, the once-paralyzed filly, is finally walking, trotting, and cantering without a walker at the farm in Belgium she left more than a year ago.

paralyzed yearling

After Vitelle’s surgery, she has slowly developed an arched stance in the lumbar region. Doctors have pulled radiographs to check why this has developed, and they believe it is a lesion that developed weeks after the surgery. The arching has stopped, and has since slowly decreased.

In June 2009, at 3 weeks old, the Boulonnais Draft horse foal developed sudden paralysis and urinary incontinence. Three days later she underwent a groundbreaking surgical laminectomy at a Belgian veterinary school to remove a cyst from her spinal cord. She underwent intensive physiotherapy (electrical muscle stimulation, ultrasound, and exercise) and learned to walk again with a custom walker

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