All the Happy Things

It's been almost a month since my last post and there have been so many things going on. Some very happy, others sad and scarey.  So lets start with the bad and move to the happy.

I found out in early August, about the time I started walking again that my dad has cancer. He had surgery and they thought they got it all, but not so. He'll have to have surgery again and hopefully then he'll be okay.

My job has been really stressful. There are just so many friggin things I have to get done and I just never seem to find the time for all of it. I feel like I'm getting no where. And then there is this person I work with. They have a superiority complex which they like to try and throw on me.  Not cool.

Lets move on to the happy.  We picked up our new puppy this past weekend.  He will never fill the hole that Jasper left, no dog could, but he is sooo beautiful.  He is his own little doggy person with a totally different personality than Jasper.  Our Golden Retriever who had been soo lonely is so much happier, and has stopped trying to crawl in to our laps everytime there is a thunder storm.

More happy. I am almost walking normally.  I'm still a long way from being completely healed but I can drive myself, and do almost everything that I had before I broke my leg. I haven't started riding yet, that is probably another month off.

The Best Happy.  I was so happy today that I almost cried. I had finished mowing, had spent some time with the puppy and wanted to spend some quality time with the High Queen.  A few weeks ago I finally ditched the ugly two horse straight that I hated and bought a big three horse Exiss slant.  Today for the first time I got the High Queen to walk in with a minimum of fuss.  She got alllll the way in and stayed until I asked her to back out.  I swear there were tears in my eyes.

It has been over a year of arguing, renting, or borrowing so many trailers you wouldn't believe it, and then finally getting the new trailer. I'd gotten the Queen half way in several times, all the way in once when I had Cowboy in the first stall, but she backed quickly off.

Today, I win. 

The Blue Cow and the Black Dog

The air near my house is almost perpetually a haze of smoke. The Great Dismal Swamp has been on fire since early in the month and burned over 6,000 acres. Even when it rains as it has every afternoon since Saturday the smokey smell never leaves.

I don't have health problems(other than a broken leg and a severe case of crazy) but my elderly neighbors do and I worry about them. I also worry about Seneca. I haven't heard her coughing, thank all things above, but as the reigning drama queen I'm keeping a watchful eye on her.

Sooo the broken leg saga continues. After my last visit where the surgeon basically said start moving on it, I very carefully started putting more and more weight on my leg. And....it doesn't hurt. Or rather not much, there are days, some worse than others, where it aches, or the swelling is bad at the end of the day. But I can walk without cruches in and out of my air cast now. Although out of my air cast its a more Igor-like sliding, limping walk, and in the cast its a more straight forward limp. 

I have another check-up in about two weeks, so we'll see what we see on the x-ray.  I don't think I'm crutch free yet, for long distances I take them, but for short jaunts I go crutchless. And I only walk with the air cast off when I'm in the house, anything else is taking my life in my own hands if my husband catches me.

Horsey things.  My mare is the fattest creature on the planet. I hadn't gotten a real good look at her until this past week, and my God she is HUGE!  I cut her grain back because el piggo obviously is doing just fine. I'm hoping to have my trainer come start riding her in September.

And in other more exciting news I will be meeting the new puppy, his siblings, mommy and breeders this weekend. Soooooo excited. He won't be coming home with me until the end of September/beginning of October, but I am sooo sooo excited.  I'll put pictures up when I have them.

Until then, gallop on!

Half Way There and Other Fuzzy Things

I had my latest in doctor's appointments today. The "look see" took longer than usual and was about 50/50 as far as results. My leg is still not healing as it should be. It is healing, but not in the time frame that is usual for a broken bone. My surgeon related what I call a "percussion break" meaning it wasn't a straight on hit that broke that bone, but rather the force that spread from the initial hit that chipped a piece off the inside of my ankle bone. But the force like a ripple effect broke the bone on the outside of the leg.  That bone is the one that is causing issues. Back to where I was going, my surgeon related my percussion break to a crush injury for how hard it was to heal the thing.

My surgeon also said that if this very stubborn bone doesn't show more signs of healing that I may be looking at another surgery. *head to desk* Not what I really needed. He said that in a second surgery he would take a piece of bone from elsewhere "he didn't say where from" and use that piece to help the break heal.  I am fervently hoping it doesn't come to that.

That was the bad news.  The good news he did say I can start swimming, and as tolerated start putting weight on my injured leg this week, starting slowly, and moving towards bearing full weight on the leg at the end of two weeks.  At which point when I can bear full weight I will make the decision about driving.  Please, please, please I pray to all things above let me be able to drive and take my own life back.

People who haven't had a broken leg don't understand how hard it is and how much of your independent life you lose.  I can't drive myself anywhere which means I have to be escorted to the grocery store, the clothing store, the bank, the feed store, and to work.  I can't clean my house, I can't groom my horse, I can't walk my dog, I can't even do my own laundry.  Totally SUCKS!

But onwards to happier things.  I wrote in my last post that my beloved English Bull Terrier, Jasper, had passed away.  I knew in my heart that I wanted another BT, but I knew I wasn't going to be ready for a new little bundle of furry energy for awhile.  The quandry is Bull Terrier's don't grow on trees, good breeders are rare and the puppies are expensive.  So even with my heart breaking I started looking for a breeder near me with a good reputation. But the problem of finding a breeder doesn't end there, not only did I have to find a breeder but one with a current litter or a litter to be born soon.  

In a stroke of luck or divine doggy intervention the excellent breeder I found in Pennsylvania had a litter of puppies born the same week that Jasper passed away.  My new fuzzy baby will be ready to come home with me in October but I will be meeting him in a few weeks. I am both very excited and meloncholy.  I miss Jasper's jaunty strut to the kitchen when he thought a treat was on offer. I miss his "pet me now" eyes as laid his head on the couch. I miss his obsession with the sand at the beach and the water hose. I miss him terribly every day, and the new puppy could never fill the hole in my heart that Jasper left, but I know the new puppy "Agate, we name our Bull Terrier's after rocks because of their hard heads" will in the way of all sweet, fuzzy, four footed creatures will carve his own place in my heart.

Sorrow

My first two weeks back at work have not been fabulous.  The first day of my first week I was told that in a year I may not have a job and that I should get my marketable skills polished up.  Freaking beautiful.

Then this past week was even worse.  Back in March my English Bull Terrier, Jasper undewent surgery for the third time to remove objects that are not supposed to be edible.  Though Jasper recovered some of his old spark he never fully came back from the surgery.  My husband and I prayed that the medications and treatments our vet gave Jasper would work, that like always our fun loving dog would bounce back.

We had gotten Jasper four years before as an 8 week old funny looking puppy that resembled a wombat more than he resembled a dog. Jasper was the first dog my husband and I had gotten as a couple. He was as most  Bull Terrier's are hard headed, stubborn, and full of amusement with the world. I had never been a dog person before we got Jasper. But I loved him above everything else with the exception of my mare.

Yesterday after a long, hard fight we made the decision to let him go. He wasn't getting any better,  and our wonderful group of vets had tried everything to no avail. Over the holiday weekend Jasper had nosebleeds, had lost way too much weight and then lost the sight in his left eye.  It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do but it was the only fair choice for Jasper.

We loved him and he will be missed.

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!