Opps

It's been awhile since I last posted. When I finished the last novel, I sort of crawled into a hole and waited for the shock waves to subside. 2.5 years of concentrated effort takes it out of one.

More recently, though, I'm just back from the hospital trauma unit after plowing into the arena sand at 25-30 mph. Countess took off, as she sometimes does especially when I use my jingling travel saddle. I lost a stirrup, she started to buck, and I came crashing down elbow first. Of all the times I've been thrown, this was by far the worst. Besides shattering my elbow, I broke several ribs, punctured a lung, and cracked my pelvis. No damage to head, neck, or spine. The ambulance hauled me into Neenah, siren blaring and attendants shouting questions about presidents while they cut me out of my clothes (damn: I'd finally gotten a pair of riding britches I liked). I don't remember much about that first night except for getting tangled up in blankets and tubes. I could hear the nurses talking at their station, but they apparently couldn't hear me shouting with increasing desperation for help. When one finally turned up, she told me, crossly, that I should have rung for her. I don't remember them putting my elbow back together, which is probably a good thing. I was surprised afterward that the fingers still had sensation and strength. Four days followed with me flat on my back. I slept a lot, when permitted, read a collection of stories selected by Alfred Hitchock, and listened to sounds out in the hall. I couldn't make out the words, but one nurse murmured incessantly with the cadence of prayer. Others whispered outside my door, went away, and came back. The door opened. No one was there. By the fourth day, the wall paper began to crawl with an oily sheen of pink and aqua dots. "It's the pain-killers," a nurse told me. She had apparently never heard of Gilman's "Yellow Wall Paper."

So now I'm home again, more inconvenienced by a pulled leg muscle than by anything else. I have to decide what I'm going to do about Canada. Also, I need to seriously consider my future riding career. True, this is the first really bad accident in 13 years, but at my age, how many can I afford?