Shock and Shatter

I went to my latest medical appointment last week and my doctor took me out of the hard cast I had been wearing for two weeks and put me in to an air cast/boot.  I still can't walk on it for another month but I'm making progress even though one of my bones isn't healing as well as expected. I felt like an event horse in a really high level barn when the doctor told me he was going to give me a four thousand dollar bone stimulator machine to try and give my healing a kick start.

That is actually the good news. The bad news is I started back to work today. And it all went down hill from there. I have to teach three classes this week which I wasn't anticipating, and teach another two week class next week, also wasn't anticipating that.  The worst though, and I am still freaking out over this one. I am Navy, I have been for over ten years. It's pretty much all I've ever done except dabbling in retail before I joined.

The Navy is trying to cut a lot of people and their new way to do it is to make people basically reapply for their job. If you want to reenlist(sign on for more years with the military) you have to go through whats called Perform to Serve.  Where the Navy looks at your record and decides whether or not they want to keep you. My current enlistement is due to end in September of next year. So of course I started the application process. It was disapproved. FREAKING WHAT!!?  

Now I get a few more times to apply and my career counselor told me not to panic until after this Christmas. But I am soooo panicing.  I have a mortgage, and horses not to mention a husband and several other animals who depend on me for things like I don't know FOOD and SHELTER!

I mean I have marketable IT skills and I am halfway through my computer bachelor degree but this came out left field and I just can't stop flipping out. You don't just tell someone that they might not have a job the following year then tell them not to panic.  That's like giving me a license to panic, free rein to panic, cracking the whip on the butt of the panic racehorse. 

Anyway that is my rant for today. And you can probably look forward to more ranting in the future.

Stay between the flags my friends.

Mutiny

So last week I went to my appointment.  My doc at first was going to offer me the choice between a hard cast and an air boot cast. I looked at him like he was crazy. "Shouldn't we look at the x-ray first?"  He looked confusedly at me and asked why.  Uh duh I am majorly crippled here.   Not that I wanted to ruin my chances of getting an air boot that I could take off to say take a shower or heh drive.

Off goes my doctor who then comes back all enlightened. "Now I remember your injury. You have to have a hard cast."   Thought so. I knew couldn't be that lucky.  So I got a pretty navy blue cast which my neighbors have decorated using a silver sharpie.

My husband has been feeding my menagerie of animals the last several weeks with a little help from the neighbors on some days.  But I have managed quite skillfully to evade detection and feed my horses a couple of times. Which sounds a lot easier than it really is. My horses eat in the field out of rubber pans.  Easy you say, just fill up two buckets with the appropriate amounts of feed and supplements, crutch my way out to the pans, dump the buckets, presto! Done.

Yeah righ.  First the High Queen feels the need to escort me the whole way while simultaneously running interference on the Spotted Beast who can be impatient and circle like a shark. Not only does the High Queen jealously guard any attention I give out, she is also extremely protective of her food.  So having a 1200 lb mass of flying hooves and teeth zooming around my crippled self is just a little disconcerting.

Then once the High Queen is happily muchning her meal I have to crutch way out to where Cowboy has dragged his pan simultaneously shaking my crutch at him so he doesn't try to dip in and boss his way in to his bucket of grain.

When I'm finally done and on the other side of the gate I am sweaty, weary but oh so happy to be able to do something normal, to be able to feed my horses. To keep a little of my sanity.

I even managed to escape my husband's eagle eye while he was napping to strip off the High Queen's nose to tail fly outfit to run a brush over her. She didn't really need it as she was a gorgeous shiny bay under her fly sheet, but I needed it and she stood quietly, sometimes touching her nose to me as if to make sure I was okay. Although I did have to explain to her that rubbing her head on my chest when I was already precariously balanced was not a good idea.

*Le sigh*  If wishes were two good legs then I would be riding right now. So until I can, keep it between the flags guys and have some fun for those of us who have to sit on the sidelines a while longer.

Aftermath

I had my surgery almost two weeks ago and aside from the first day after the surgery things have been pretty good considering I only have one working leg.  The day after surgery as all the nurses warned me was the worst.  They had to dope me with morphine several times so by the time I got shoved home by the totally bossy day nurse I was pretty well out of it.

But my mom came to stay the weekend with me since hubby had to work and that was pretty nice.  The bad parts came later when my husband's relatives descended.  Ever live in a house with three men and you are unable to cook, clean or organize?  Talk about hell.

The horses are good though, fat, lazy, well behaved. The Spotted Beast goes off to the professional trainer in September. I was on the fence about sending him but now I don't have two legs to stand on so off he goes to a really great guy in western virginia.

As for the High Queen. My trainer T. is going to hopefully start coming out once a week starting in July when I'm a little more mobile and ride her.

I have a check-up appointment tomorrow to get the stitches from my surgery out and possibly a permanent cast rather than the soft cast/splint I've been wearing for over three weeks.  And then the long, long wait. I thought I'd be doing physical therapy at the end of this month, but it was not to be. One of my breaks was so bad the surgery took twice as long and so will the healing time.

Anyway keep it between the flags!