still alive

[akane]

Yay no more stitches! A section on either side still feels like I'm sitting/laying on rocks and riding in the car still results in some weird burning pain. I can lay on my back though and the joint pain is going away from all the time spent on my side. I'm mostly walking better. My right foot is not picking up clear of the ground well but I'm hoping when the spot that feels like a rock on my left side improves I will be able to swing my right leg better. It's kind of pulling and stiff there when I try to fully extend the opposite leg. We look at houses tomorrow with hopefully minimal pain. Sunday is a combination of events with Josh's family but the 45min car ride means I probably won't go.

 

[Miss M]

Wow, with the extent of the surgery, I didn't think you'd bounce back this fast! Keep it up!

 

[akane]

I always bounce back from injury. You know how many horses I got thrown off :lol: Between horses, my mountain bike, and the large work 4wheeler that my 105lbs could not counter balance on turns I was always flying off or crashing something. I'd limp to the house and then hold up my latest injury with a grin when my mom came out. I think I was wearing vet wrap every vacation. That really does not speak well for my joints though. Everything caught up to me when I hit mid 20s. Even all this is a complicated result of an old injury my mom never took me to the doctor for.

 

[Miss M]

Yeowch. I never did get thrown from a horse, not even the one that had dumped nearly every one of his riders in the lake.

I did crash my bike some 30 years ago, though... I still pay for it now and then.

 

[akane]

My grandma bought whatever she felt sorry for at auction. The horses that weren't flat out insane had some unpredictable fears from being beaten. Finally when I started showing 4-h the money was spent on mostly sane and trained horses.

 

[Miss M]

Wow, yeah, that would do it. :shock:

This horse was just not completely gentled yet. Very high-spirited. I wanted the challenge. This was at a girls' camp I used to go to every summer for 2 1/2 weeks, through age 12. Loved it, but I kept getting stuck with this one horse every year, once they realized I could make it do what I wanted it to (very lazy horse). My last year, I got assigned that horse again, and lodged a protest. It's my last year, and I've been managing this stubborn, lazy horse all this time. I want THAT horse.

They were very nervous about my request, and didn't really want to put me on him. Usually, only adults rode him. But I pleaded my case and completely understood that it was my fault if I got dumped in the lake. He would grab the bit and head for the lake, as the rider, now helpless to steer the horse, tried to hang on. I figured all I had to do was keep him from getting the bit away from me.

I was right. Riding that horse was a dream. Loved every minute of it. He probably didn't like it so much, but I sure did.

 

[akane]

The college horse program had this amazing arab. Everyone complained about him and said he was horribly trained. I just kept his head tipped in to the arena and his shoulders on the outside of the arena until he gave up trying to spastically look around. After that I could do things like side pass him in any gait on varying angles across the arena and back again. He'd just spent too much time with teenagers who had never sat on a horse before or only had lazy lesson horses and then decided they liked the idea of a career in horses. You really can't just jump in to such a career with 2 years or if you drag it out 4 years of riding and handling horses. It just can't be done and your degree will mean nothing when they ask you to demonstrate your skill against people who grew up on the back of a horse. I did get put on this lazy brat of a horse because I was the only one who could post and kick at the same time for a good hour straight to keep him moving. I so hated that horse. Halfway through the semester of me complaining they finally gave me back the arab. Energetic, spastic horses with short attention spans is what I was used to.

 

[Miss M]

Ooooooo, I've never had a chance to ride a full-blooded Arab horse. I think the one I finally got that year was half Arab. Energetic, yes... spastic with a short attention span, no, thankfully. :lol:

I did not grow up on the back of a horse, but I did ride every chance I got. Mom went to visit a friend of hers, who used to be in competition and whose daughter had a horse (but the daughter wasn't home). I got on the horse bareback almost as soon as we got there, and rode all day long, just all over the place on that horse. Then those summers at camp. I guess I got pretty good, for as little as I actually rode. But I certainly wouldn't approach your experience.

We did have to groom, saddle, bridle, everything but muck out the stalls. Putting a saddle on a horse is pretty hard when you're a petite 12-year-old (or under).

 

[akane]

I think my show saddle weighed as much as me. :lol: Luckily we generally had short quarter horses and when I was about 8 my pony got bred by a paint and produced a 13-14h pinto that I trained myself. I regret letting mom sell her but it made it easier to convince her to get me a trained barrel horse.

 

[Miss M]

:lol: Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if the Western saddles I handled weighed as much as I did. The spirited horse I rode that last year wasn't quite as tall as the lazy horse I'd had before that, so I got a little bit of a break. I don't know how many hands either was, but that lazy horse sure did seem tall. I could just barely -- BARELY -- get my left foot up into that stirrup so I could swing up, in spite of the fact that I took him over to a stool before mounting.

 

[akane]

Ack, I was feeling recovered, did a whole bunch of house cleaning and some furniture rearrangement because we think we've found the house we want. Woke up this morning and the incision had split open. I have to go to the surgeon in about an hour to see what he thinks should be done. I was hoping to finish looking at houses today and make a decisions. :/

 

[Miss M]

:shock: Whoa, that's pretty unusual to have the incision split open after this long!

 

[akane]

There was an open 1/2" gap at the bottom which is now a 2" gap. Seems some pocket of fluid broke. Probably from all my moving around yesterday. Now I have gauze shoved in my incision. I could have used some anesthetic for him to cut the area open, clean it, apply silver nitrate, and then shove gauze in there. We're just gonna do this on no painkiller :

 

[MamaSheepdog]

:x :x :x

OWWWW!

Now listen here, Akane... :nono: you are supposed to be taking it easy, not rearranging furniture! Leave that to your husband and any burly guy (or girl!) friends that you have.

You can still be productive without taxing yourself. Packing up the junk drawers, bathroom cabinets, knick knacks, even most of your dishes and stuff will keep you plenty busy and are the time consuming, pain in the rear jobs anyway.

Good luck with your house hunting! :good-luck: I hope you find a nice place with more privacy than your condo.

 

[akane]

I'm pretty sure we found the house we want but Josh insists we go look at the rest on our list. The down payment money is in the account but it has to sit for 30days and then pay off the crv in order to get a mortgage. Otherwise we have to sell the condo before we can buy a house and move out of the condo which just isn't going to work with animal cages all around and constantly having to scrub bunny pee spray off the wall. There's also a minor flaw in the new laminate floor that they can't fix until the room is empty again.

 

[Miss M]

Well, since the money has to sit there anyway, who knows? You might find a place you like even better!

 

[akane]

Stressed out. I'm reaching my limit for pain. The area of the incision that opened has to have gauze shoved in to it 3 times a day and I swear the tape they gave us is coated in superglue. I think I lost a layer of skin peeling it off every 8-10 hours. If the drainage doesn't stop they are going to basically vacuum it out of my back. Sounds fun. : Do I get anesthesia for this?

I also sold my horses today. All the ones out of my favorite mares by stallions I chose. I think the haggling over price was worse than watching them go. I didn't get near what I wanted but I'm sick of dealing with people. If I kept them to try to get the extra $500 I wanted I would have spent just as much in hoof care by the time they sold. It's usually $20 a hoof here so that's $320 for one trim on all of them.

Tomorrow 3 chinchillas might be sold but the person only answers their email in the evening and they were very unhelpful for setting up a time and place so who knows. I'm turning it over to Josh. Selling horses, hedgehogs, rabbits, chinchillas... I'm tired of people. Next chinchilla litter isn't for several months and I hope to be in a house by then.

To Chicago Saturday (I hope my back can take a 4 hour one way car ride) and pick up my new rabbits. Replacement buck for Kido, poor kido He passed on such a great personality and was also a very cute ND with good type. His show career ended early because he developed a white toenail and that's about the only fault he really had. It will not be the same without Kido.

 

[Frosted Rabbits]

.

Do you know how tasty graham crackers are when nearing 20 hrs without food.

Graham Crackers? You got Graham Crackers? far more preferable than a cold, dry, turkey sandwhich and a diet soft drink that you are allergic to!!
Haven't been able to keep up, but glad your pain levels should subside. Chronic pain is a killer! Now, let's see- what kind of jello to stock up on for the next surgical procedure--I hate cooking when I feel decent!
Lime Okay with you?

 

[Galadriel]

If the drainage doesn't stop they are going to basically vacuum it out of my back. Sounds fun. : Do I get anesthesia for this?

They knocked me out for my wisdom teeth removal, but they didn't when they had to empty an abscess later! :evil: You should probably ask them to.

 

[akane]

Yay no wound vac. Just lots of gauze changes until enough skin grows on the remaining open incision.

Wisdom tooth removal is rarely full anesthesia. They use an injected sedative to make you relaxed, sleepy, and most of all forget everything that happens. Often you are actually still awake enough to obey some commands that you won't remember. I've had that done for really badly impacted wisdom teeth, removal of some damaged molars, and upper endoscopy. I have no problem with that aside from a resistance probably due to my meds. It took 3 doses to knock me out for my endoscopy.

Now full anesthesia my brain did not like. If someone had said "We are giving you anesthesia now and you will go to sleep." I probably would have been fine. I got blindsided though and put in to complete panic. I woke up in the recovery area making distressed noises and possibly even yelling. My brain was fighting so hard to wake back up I wasn't even able to focus my eyes or move yet. Someone asked me about pain and I don't know if they injected morphine or what but 3 or 4 syringes later I was no longer aware of things again. When I woke up being put in a room with my husband and a nurse that just offered blankets instead of breath this or injecting stuff the panic finally went away. I guess I had dreams about it for awhile though cause my husband said I was making noises of pain in my sleep. Whenever it woke me up I felt fine aside from stressed.