Impact Trauma

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

"Go to the hospital."

"But who will pay for it?"

I have something to say to all of my friends and associates, the people I hang with and the ones I talk to. I want to say this tonight before I go to bed, because that might well be the end of the me you all knew.

Today at roughly three o'clock in the afternoon, I was riding my sister's draft horse down the road in front of our property. The maintainers had just been through, so the road was turned up, and while slightly fluffed on the surface, relatively flat. All the water-cut ripples had been scraped off. The horse – her name is Misti, and she's roughly five foot four at the top of her shoulder and I guess some 1700 pounds or so – had not been worked at all for any reason in a little too long.

I took her out of the pen, out of the hobbles, and saddled her up to give her something to do besides mope and totter about in the hobbles. We made the corner of our property, and another of the maintainers – basically a giant yellow tractor with an elongated beam for a body that has a wide shovel hitched under it – was coming up the lane that separates us from our neighbors to the south – and frees the otherwise landlocked property behind us.

Misti saw the roaring maintainer coming up that side lane, and freaked. She turned right around, and darted out of the sightline of that narrow lane. After the first three running steps, she began to buck, causing the saddle I was sitting in to come loose. (My guess is that her ribcage changes size and or shape during the bucking motion) The saddle began to slip to the side, so I grabbed the horn and a fistful of her mane, and held on. I wasn't strong enough… and when the saddle reached halfway, I let go.

I was not about to come under Misti's belly and be kicked to death. I hit the road in a roll, flipping end for end once. I don't know if she kicked me in the head on her way past or if I really just hit the gravel that hard, but my insulated military surplus "bunny hat" (a helmet liner) filled with blood. It saturated the entire back of my head, and squirted out across my cheek.

I knew the maintainer was still coming – being just out of the sightline of the lane, there was no way the man driving it would have seen what happened. I spent three eternity-long seconds clawing at the loosened gravel, unable to sort which direction was up. When I finally got my bearings back, I looked up, to see the last of Misti, galloping around the far corner in the road headed home without me. The saddle was already under her belly.

I had gotten rolled face-down, and my elbows under me, when the man in the maintainer jumped out and ran up to me. He informed me the back of my head was bloodsoaked. He picked me up, held me until I quit wobbling, then stood there with me until my Mother came and got me, to walk me home.

We spent a couple of hours washing the blood out of my hair with hot water and terrycloth towels, before my Mother managed to get the coagulated blood out enough to see where it had come from.

I have no less than five splits in the back of my scalp… not to mention the M-shaped bruise across the back of my hips… and my head is pounding unmercifully.

That's what happened.

Here's what I wanted to say.

Thank you, all of you, for being my friends, for being nice to me, for listening when I bitched. For giving advice and condolences as each incident came and went. I still do not have a job, and my father has only been employed for one day – ONE DAY – our tenant cannot make rent this month, as he too has come upon very hard times. There is no money to take me to see a doctor, nor for hospital admittance.

So before I go to bed, and sleep on my head injury… I wanted to tell all of you, just in case I don't remember who I am in the morning… thank you for being there for me.

I can never express how much it means to me.

-Aardvark

Shouldnt this go in the library

I thought it was a FF at first too, but it seems she is serious.

After i read it properly i see what you mean

Damn, just, damn. That sucks. I hope you do have your memory when you wake up.

Does she not live in the US? If she does, she cannot be denied medical assistance.

That's very sad, though. You have my best wishes.

Me too

A+
Would read again

But yeah seriously, this isn't good. As Krazy said, you most likely wouldn't have damaged anything too seriously, or else you would have blacked out, or lost consciousness for a few hours.

Anyway, good luck with your head wounds. Should be all good.

Isnt America trying to pass free health care

We have free health care

Well, you're typing this on the forums, and you can remember what happened quite vividly, so that's a good sign.

It seems likely that you don't have any brain damage, so that's a good sign.

Hopefully you'll get better soon Hops.

Good luck to you Hops. Get better soon.

Damn... I'm sorry that had to happen to you Aardvark. I hope you're better soon

LOL i love the fact you turned it into a story good read