Em(bracing) the plot twist

How many times have we heard our trainers yell  “get back on the horse or go to the hospital” when you fall off? Now in 99% of my cases, I would humbly pick up my shattered body, swallow my pride and with some hesitation climb right back on the beast that thought it would be fun to play “toss the rider”. In this particular case…at this juncture in life… and at my less than agile age, however, I felt too broken to get up off the ground much less get back on the horse. The worst part about this fall is that I had just mounted the horse (I had not even gotten my other foot into the stirrup) when the horse decided “READY OR NOT, HERE WE GO”!!!!!!

The point of this blog is not to belabor the details surrounding the unfortunate fate of “dismounting with grace” or the humbling words that “strength comes not from the fall but rising after the fall”. In earlier years, I had more than my fair shares of falls and accidents that prevail in the Equestrian world…in fact, I perfected the art of dismantling! That is a subject for another blog…for another day. The following is a take on my recent journey to recovery…

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS AFTER FALL:

• Assess the situation
• Dodge the feet as the bucking bronco leaps into action
• Flail your arms should your mount return to run you over
• Did the lights go out?
• Are you breathing?
• Can you get up?
• Can you stay up?
• If not, can you crawl?
• Can you walk?
• How bad is the nausea from shock to the nervous system?
• If bad, sit on the mounting block you fell near until you feel that you can move without passing out
• When you come to, ask any witnesses WTF just happened
• While waiting for the nausea to dissipate, ponder whether or not a bee just stung this familiar mount in the ass.
• Discount any burs in the saddle pad, since that was your 4th ride that day with the same tack and no other prior incidents
• If you are able to move regardless of handicaps, search for bucking bronco
• Catch bucking bronco
• Check for broken tack
• Check for injuries to the horse (if you really care at this point)
• Untack the horse
• Put the horse away if you are significantly injured
• Otherwise, lunge the fool out of the horse if you can manage
• Put the horse away
• Go home
• Take Motrin
• Break out the ice packs (ice wraps for horses work great)
• Expect to feel worse tomorrow
• Wakeup every time you try to find a comfortable sleeping position
• Remember what it was like when it took incremental attempts when you were pregnant to rotate sides when sleeping
• Conclude that the pain far surpasses the time you fell down a flight of 7 icy steps

IN THE FOLLOWING DAYS

• Take Motrin every 6 hours
• Ice twice a day, MINIMUM
• Purchase a doughnut pillow
• Take Epsom Salt Soaks
• Experiment with your equine poultice products HINT: Marvelous Mud wins this category
• Take left over prescription pain medication from last surgery/fall/accident/injury
• For those that have desk jobs, make a point to move around every hour
• Purchase SI belt (the brace will be a life saver when taking horses to/from turn-out)
• Vow you will never allow your chiropractor to take her annual vacation during the week of your injury again
• If after a week, you are not feeling better, have x-rays taken
• Arrive 10 minutes before clinic opens to avoid wait
• No worries, the 7 people already in line 10 minutes prior to opening could easily have been 37 people had you not arrived early
• Once admission has been completed, you see NURSE RANCID come thru the door to retrieve the first patient.
• You immediately text your colleague blasting her for telling you that NURSE RANCID retired
• Your colleague responds by saying “she did…she must not have enjoyed retirement without victims to torture…thoughts and prayers are with you”!
• Decide to wait anyway, vowing that you will make it your mission to get a smile from NURSE RANCID before you leave the clinic
• Feeling triumphant that not only did you get a grin out of NURSE RANCID but as a bonus you managed to get a chuckle and a few words of convo from her as well.
• When the x-ray technician instructs you to lay on the cold hard slab, inquire if it is possible to take images standing up.
• When told “no”, try to hold back the tears as you manage to carefully maneuver your broken ass on the table
• After several images, the technician realizes she will need to retake all of them again since the injury site was just barely out of photo range.
• Try not to strangle technician (NURSE RANCID’S cousin by an incestual affair) as she re-arranges your limbs like a puppet
• Try to read the technician’s face once she has looked over the second set of x-rays…to no avail
• Repeat sleeping rotation technique to get up from metal slab
• As you begin to expect the worst, you find consolation in the thought that you already broke your coccyx bone in middle school when you fell from the top of the monkey bars to a straddling position of the bottom bar. I can still remember the excruciating pain and nausea as a result…not to mention the playground location and the hazardous red color of the popular recess apparatus.
• The physician finally walks in to give you conclusion of images…BUT…before he does, he stalls by asking “you are still riding those horses, huh”?  Now you really begin to suspect the worst…just when you hear…
• “You certainly have done a number this time…………………………………………………………..but no signs of fractures or broken bones. If you are not better in 7-10 more days, come back and I will order an MRI”.
• Grab the prescription for pain medication and hurry out of the patient room (well as quickly as you can in your condition) before the Physician has a chance to change his diagnosis. Ignore the words trailing in the distance…”you know your fate is going to run out one day riding those horses”.  Just keep moving towards the exit door!
• Ok life is good…no fractures or broken bones AND I managed to shed some light on NURSE RANCID’S otherwise gloomy day.
• Go to massage therapist for EMS therapy
• Chiropractor finally returns from vacation and shifts sacrum back into proper alignment and hooks you up to the TENS unit.
• Learn the difference between EMS and TENS…your two newest addictions!
• Search for the heating pad you stored away after the last horse related incident
• You can now start alternating hot & cold therapy
• After two weeks of any and all of the above, you decide to see how you fare riding
• After trotting across the short side of the arena, you immediately decide it is too soon to be bobbing up and down in the saddle and set out to clean tack instead
• Utilize the next few days catching up on chores at home and at the barn that you would otherwise choose to ignore over riding. Trim horses,  Pull manes, Organize lockers, Clean tack, etc… Skip trimming the lower leg feathers for now. You will need to save your back for the necessary daily hoof cleaning
• If you should find it impossible to tolerate the pain to clean hooves… beg, borrow, steal or bribe someone to volunteer for the task…offers of assistance are also acceptable. When all else fails, source the chore out to the Girl Scout, you refused to buy cookies from in the earlier season, to make amends.
• Solicit help from tiny humans at home to start earning their keep by exercising the horses.  When complaints arise that you should dare ask them to assist with the care of their horses, remind them of the college trip to Morocco; provide warning for forfeiture of financial support and/or enabling any future desires that require monetary funding.
• Go back to chiropractor that wants to see you again in a few days to make certain your adjustment held. She ascertains that she would like to see copies of the x-rays before she pursues a more aggressive approach to treatment. She said if she cannot find anything, she will forward images to her preferred orthopedic surgeon for a third opinion. Better to err on the side of caution,  she ascertains. Otherwise, learn that you are on the right track and these type injuries typically take 4 weeks to heal.
• Try riding again 3-4 days later that yields a lot more success than the first trial run. Although you will not be doing sitting trot routines for a while, you are able to put 2 elder horses thru their paces that day (God Bless these Saints) and lunge the younger/bouncier horse = all 4 horses were exercised on this monumental day (niece made it out to ride her horse on this day, as well). With any luck, perhaps you can eliminate the need for injections and/or bone fusion that typically comes with this type of injury…fingers crossed!
• Rejoice when you can finally put on underwear without sitting or holding onto something for support…you may just be on the homerun stretch!

THINGS TO DO/AVOID WITH POSTERIOR INJURIES

• Do not ride a bike until you have once again resumed riding your horses without the nauseating pain that will accompany the gradual comeback
• Take your time walking on uneven ground…that one misguided step will send you into blood curdling orbit
• Be alert when walking your horses to / from turn-out and learn to anticipate the unexpected jolt when one swings around to get a pesky bug off their flank
• Take your time stepping off of curbs or climbing stairs, which inevitably aggravates the over-stretched ligaments
• Learn which stretches you can do to build muscle strength to compensate for injured ligaments
• Utilize floating device to conduct pool exercises in the deep end
• DO NOT walk or twist sideways (as demonstrated when squeezing between two chairs)…pain could be comparable to walking on nails or thru fire!
• Furthermore, learn how to get in/out your suburban or truck without twisting
• Dismantle the deterring deer contraptions you set up in your yard to preserve your labor intensive gardens and flowers…at least until you can successfully and painlessly hurdle the invisible lines again. You may leave the invisible netting over the gardens
• Take a spare hose with you to/from barn to fill water buckets for the one horse that does not have a hose attached to nearby faucet. Lifting buckets of water will only prolong the healing process
• Only lunge horses you do not have to chase (Godiva would not be a good choice in this instance). If desperate situations call for desperate measures, borrow the “plastic bag on the end of a lunge whip” trick from your fellow saddle seat riders. You know the one that would terrify your mount when riding in adjacent arena. This measure should only be used when you notice that Godiva is gaining 200 pounds every day that she is not exercised.
• Delegate the catch-n-rescue animals to another successor while you are on the mend
• Do not expect to be able to garden while injured. Driving the shovel into the ground with your foot will only remind you of the shock symptoms you experienced after the fall
• Do not plan on errands / trips / outings that include lengthy time driving or sitting
• Avoid bumps, ruts and potholes at all cost while driving
• Although you cannot always dodge railroad tracks while driving, you will certainly succeed at enraging the driver behind you when you opt to creep over the tracks at a turtle pace.
• If your last name does not begin with A,B, or C, do not volunteer to accompany your youngest millennial to traffic court. Trust me when I say that sitting on a cold hard bench for 4-5 hours is not a laughing matter in your condition…you would rather have another episiotomy instead!

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED ON THIS JOURNEY

• Life always has bumps in the road
• How you manage the bumps is what counts
• Always be thankful and count your blessings…things could have turned out a whole lot worse
• Everything happens for a reason…we may not always know what that reason is but my guardian angels have put in a whole lot of overtime catching me when I fall (no pun intended) to throw in the towel at this juncture…lol!
• Life always comes with silver linings…I now remember what it is like to stop and smell my cherished roses once in a while
• Go with flow…it is what it is…you cannot go back and change anything…learn from it and move on.
• Accomplish things you have been putting off (within physical ability)
• Bumps are meant to keep us in check (i.e., patience is not a virtue of mine when it comes to waiting or slowing down productivity)
• Horses have probably enjoyed the downtime during this early historical 100/100 heat wave
• After observing the suspension your younger/bouncier project horse displays while lunging during your recovery time, you decide that if you and/or this project horse should advance to showing, her name will be “Suspended in Time”
• Creative outlets emerge when we slow down enough to recognize the invitations
• Do not put off going to the Doctor. I don’t like hunting or searching for what I do not want to find but in this case the fear of the unknown prevailed.
• If you are lucky to receive the news that you do not have any fractures or breaks, you can then explore your boundaries and limitations of therapy…but don’t try and play super hero
• Instead of being complacent about mounting a horse, learn to secure your seat in the saddle and your opposite foot in the stirrup a lot sooner in order to have a fighting chance of staying on the sporadic bucking bronco. Now you can appreciate the way rodeo cowboys stay above the horses back until the gate opens…lol!

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Never considered riding without a helmet! Things would have been a whole, whole lot worse had your head succumbed the impact that your posterior endured.

Hopefully, you will never need to reference this script again after initial reading…BUT…if you should…perhaps this experience and testimony will come in handy in more ways than one. 🙂

HAPPY TRAILS!!!