Hang In There

I know that I promised a new post by now, however in addition to the injury to my hand and arm, there has been a death in our family.

I have the first draft completed on the Dan James clinic.  I was able to take quite a few pictures so the post should be colorful.  The one picture that shows me actually doing something is a bit out of focus, but I'm going to use it anyway.   The new post will be delivered in two parts, with part one being published this weekend...I hope.  I have a lot of grass to cut!

There has been a surge of interest in this blog lately with views in places like Kuwait and Viet Nam, but most surprising is the number of views in the Ukraine.  I know there has been a lot of tension and uncertainty there, so I hope that taking a look at this blog gives the viewer(s) some pleasure.

So hang in there, a new post really is coming and soon.

Oh,S**t!

It's been said that if you work with horses long enough, you'll wind up in the emergency room of the nearest hospital.  The odds finally caught up to me yesterday, Saturday, May 10,  as I was loading my horse, Stormy, into our trailer.

Carol, my wife, was handling Stormy's head after I had lead her into the trailer.  As I put her butt-bar into its slot, Stormy tossed her head and unexpectedly jumped backwards, crushing my hand against the butt-bar padding.  The middle finger on my right hand took the brunt of the blow.  

With my hand free I danced across the driveway using every word of profanity I know, and then I saw my wrist!  The seam of the butt-bar's padding had deeply cut my wrist following the line of the bone just above my hand.  There was very little blood, but I thought I could see bone.

I rinsed the cut with cold water and my wife dressed it with gauze and tape while I turned a deathly white.  When I was no longer woozy,  I decided to go to Australian Dan James' clinic as planned. After all, the clinic cost more than $300.00, not to mention a new set of tires for the trailer.  

More than twelve hours after the accident I strolled into the emergency room and spent the next three hours meeting six different members of the hospital staff,  signing at least a half dozen "permission to treat" documents and cooling my heels for long periods.  When the doctor got around to suturing my wrist the anesthesia had worn off, but I let her have a go at it anyway.   The "bone" was actually a tendon and partially torn, necessitating a trip to a hand specialist sometime this week.  Meanwhile because of the splint and padding used I can't use a fork very well, and we'll see if I can wash my hair tonight.

The splint makes it appear that my arm is broken.

I am working on the next post about the Dan James clinic and hope to post it by this Sunday.  There will be quite a few pics and some interesting factoids about Dan.

Copyright, May 11, 2014 by Loren Schumacher

Photo, Copyright, May 10, 2014 by Carol A. Lang