Shannon Lilley, who was a member of the gold medal winning U.S. eventing team for the 2011 Pan Am Games atop Ballingowan Pizazz, underwent emergency back surgery after an MRI on Tuesday, Feb. 28, revealed her L5 disc had shattered.

“I’d been feeling a little bit of numbness just on my right side,” Lilley said. The numbness lasted for about a week, but she woke up on Sunday, Feb. 26, with some pain. After a doctor’s visit on Monday, the pain dissipated.

“I woke up on Tuesday morning with basically no feeling,” she continued. After a short ride, she called her doctor, who encouraged her to go to the emergency room for the MRI.

The doctors were worried about possible nerve damage and performed the surgery to remove the pieces of the vertebrae according to Dayna Lynd-Pugh, who has trained Lilley since she was 9 and now runs Flying Tail Farms with her out of Gilroy, Calif.,

Lilley, 32, was released from the hospital on Saturday, March 3. She will undergo physical therapy starting in six weeks, and she expects a full recovery.

“It’s getting better by the hour,” Lynd-Pugh said while Lilley was still in the hospital, noting the injury wasn’t caused by an equine-related incident, but doctors said it had been building for some time.

Lilley returned home and spent time at the stables on Tuesday, March 6. She said walking is the most comfortable for her, and she is thankfull to see her horses and be back at the barn. She needs to wear a brace until the vertebrae heals and more nerves regenerate. 

She planned to ride two of her horses in three-star events this spring, but that will no longer be a possibility. Lilley hopes to compete this fall, but she’ll have a better idea of her future schedule once she begins physical therapy.

“All of my eventing family has been really supportive,” Lilley said, noting a constant stream of visitors while in the hospital.