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murakoziOkay. Not exactly shiny. Not by a long shot.
Friday I found out my mother'd been sent to the emergency room. Turns out she had a blood clot in her leg (people with advanced Parkinsons disease tend to not be very mobile) which had broken up. The assorted bits of it ended up in her lungs, which is, to put it mildly, a very bad thing. So New Years Eve I went to bed early so I could be up early Saturday and drive the 100 miles up to the hospital. I spent most of the day there then came home. In the evening after I'd left, they found some enzymes in her blood that are normally only present after a heart attack or after part of the heart has been deprived of oxygen for a while. I didn't find out about this until Sunday afternoon though, after a not-so-great day at the barn (see below). She's had folks from where she lives and her church visiting her, so I figured I'd wait til Tuesday to go see her again in the evening. Well, that changed when my little sister called yesterday and insisted I go right up right then. Seems she'd called and my mother was kind of 'out of it' on the phone and one of the nurses had screwed up and let her have some breakfast when she was supposed to be fasting before a test. Basically, lil sis wanted me to go up and micromanage the nurses. Erf. Turns out the reason mom was 'out of it' was because she'd been asleep when sis called. As for the nurses, they all seem to be pretty darned competent. Ah well. Got home sometime after 8 last night to a filthy apartment and almost no food on hand.
On a more positive note, the tests that had to be rescheduled due to the fasting being messed up were able to be done in the afternoon. The doctor performing them seemed to think they looked good and that she might even be able to go home today. We'll see.
This certainly isn't helping the stress and such already going on due to my grandfather dying before Christmas and assorted other dysfunctional extended family fun.
Okay, there was only one bad event, but with the stress and fatigue and such from other happenings in my life, it pretty much tainted the rest of what was otherwise not a bad day at the barn.
Basically, the bossmare and I had a bit of a disagreement. Now the school side of the barn was closed from Christmas to Jan 1, which means the school horses weren't working. As a result the horses all had a good bit of energy built up that they weren't dissipating. Cooler weather seems to add to this, too.
Cascade, the bossmare, is a big, beautiful quarterhorse. She's a friendly one with people but is very much the undisputed ruler of the horses. She's around 10 years old and in her prime. She can get piggish and headstrong when being ridden, but not so bad that a decent rider can't keep her under control and behaving.
She didn't work at all in the trail rides on Sunday. I'd kinda been hoping one of the guides would take her out so she could lose some pent up energy, but it didn't happen. As a result, I was expecting her to be a bit goofy when it was time for me to turn her out. Unfortunately, the other barn hand, Irina, was nowhere to be found when I was turning the horses out, so I had to do it by myself. Not usually a problem, but not ideal. Got down to the last couple horses: Bebe and Cascade. I'd been putting off taking Cascade out because I'd hoped to find someone to take care of the pasture gate when I did it. Bebe is an old fella and usually quite the gentleman when turned out, so I decided to do him last, in case Cascade was a pill. Oi. In hindsight, I should've done him before her. Owell.
So I put a halter and lead rope on Cascade and take her out of her stall. Right away she was wanting to GO and be with her buddies. I stopped a couple times and made her circle a bit, until she stopped trying to just go and drag me along behind. She was energetic but okay after that, til we got to the pasture.
Let me just say that, yes, I know it's not ideal to take a horse through a gate and turn them out alone, especially when the horse is being a handfull. Yes, I should've waited til I could find someone to take care of the gate for me. But I didn't, and hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Anyhoo, we actually got through the gate fine. I latched it and turned her to face toward it so I could get her halter off. The horses know, of course, that once the halter is off, they're free and can zoom off to roll in the dirt and herd with buddies and such. It's not uncommon for them to feel the halter being unbuckled and think it's off when it isn't. This usually just means a little tug as they try to turn then realize they're still haltered. Cascade did this, but she just about lunged away. I yanked her back and grunted scoldingly, letting her know that wasn't acceptable. Then she did it again. Another yank and a swat on the neck. Okay, she stood there, all tensed and ready to go as soon as she was free. I went for the buckle again and started to undo it and she pulled again...so I tugged it and grunted at her...
...and she stood up.
She reared. A couple things happened. First, about 4000 gallons of adrenaline shot into my system. here I am with both hands in a horse's halter and suddenly her head is a LOT higher than it usually is, which means that 5'10" me doesn't have his feet on the ground briefly. Actually, I lost my grip on the halter. Next thing was that I managed to grab the lead rope with my left hand and the chinstrap of the halter with my right and pull her back down. Actually, according to Irina (who had decided to show up and was just leading Bebe up to the gate, unbeknownst to me) I yanked her down and forward a bit so her head was right in front of the gate and down low. As she was recovering from the surprise of that, and her weight was off balance to the front and her head was down, I undid the halter. She sprang back, spun and shot off up the hill. Lil 195 pound me manhandled the 1100 pound horse.
Now I've gotten irritated with the horses before when they've misbehaved, but never really angry at any of 'em. Perhaps because of recent stress and fatigue, though, I was downright furious with Cascade. I'm very ashamed to admit that I really wanted to hit her before she got out of range. Not a harmless neck slap, but to actually punch that mare. It bothers me that I could even consider that and I feel pretty bad about it. Fortunately, it didn't happen. About all I did was to use a few choice exclamations and make some improbable statements as to Cascade's parents and lineage and glue factories and such. That and fling my halter and lead onto the ground. Then I looked at my left hand.
I wear fingerless gloves for some barn stuff. Doing up girths, halters, bridles and such just aren't things that one can do easily when wearing full gloves. Obviously this leaves much of my fingers unprotected. When Cascade stood up and the halter was pulled from my hands, the middle finger of my left hand took a chunk of damage. There's some bruising along one entire side of it, but the real injury is the last segment, up round the fingernail. The halter tore off a couple layers of skin on one side, along with peeling back a big chunk of skin alongside the nail. Just below the cuticle is another chunk of missing skin layers. The whole fingertip is bruised and the joint is kinda stiff. It's all nice and swollen too. Owie. I'm used to cuts and scratches from the barn and hand injuries tend to bleed a bit, so I didn't realize how much damage had been done right off. Heck, I just rinsed it off, put a bandage on it and tried to pamper it the rest of the day there. When I got home and went to clean it out properly, I saw how much'd been done. Danged mare.
Oddly, I'm typing better with it all bandaged up. I think it's because it's slowing my typing down.
So that was how the old year ended and the new one started. Hopefully it's not a sign of what the rest of the year will be like.
Friday I found out my mother'd been sent to the emergency room. Turns out she had a blood clot in her leg (people with advanced Parkinsons disease tend to not be very mobile) which had broken up. The assorted bits of it ended up in her lungs, which is, to put it mildly, a very bad thing. So New Years Eve I went to bed early so I could be up early Saturday and drive the 100 miles up to the hospital. I spent most of the day there then came home. In the evening after I'd left, they found some enzymes in her blood that are normally only present after a heart attack or after part of the heart has been deprived of oxygen for a while. I didn't find out about this until Sunday afternoon though, after a not-so-great day at the barn (see below). She's had folks from where she lives and her church visiting her, so I figured I'd wait til Tuesday to go see her again in the evening. Well, that changed when my little sister called yesterday and insisted I go right up right then. Seems she'd called and my mother was kind of 'out of it' on the phone and one of the nurses had screwed up and let her have some breakfast when she was supposed to be fasting before a test. Basically, lil sis wanted me to go up and micromanage the nurses. Erf. Turns out the reason mom was 'out of it' was because she'd been asleep when sis called. As for the nurses, they all seem to be pretty darned competent. Ah well. Got home sometime after 8 last night to a filthy apartment and almost no food on hand.
On a more positive note, the tests that had to be rescheduled due to the fasting being messed up were able to be done in the afternoon. The doctor performing them seemed to think they looked good and that she might even be able to go home today. We'll see.
This certainly isn't helping the stress and such already going on due to my grandfather dying before Christmas and assorted other dysfunctional extended family fun.
Okay, there was only one bad event, but with the stress and fatigue and such from other happenings in my life, it pretty much tainted the rest of what was otherwise not a bad day at the barn.
Basically, the bossmare and I had a bit of a disagreement. Now the school side of the barn was closed from Christmas to Jan 1, which means the school horses weren't working. As a result the horses all had a good bit of energy built up that they weren't dissipating. Cooler weather seems to add to this, too.
Cascade, the bossmare, is a big, beautiful quarterhorse. She's a friendly one with people but is very much the undisputed ruler of the horses. She's around 10 years old and in her prime. She can get piggish and headstrong when being ridden, but not so bad that a decent rider can't keep her under control and behaving.
She didn't work at all in the trail rides on Sunday. I'd kinda been hoping one of the guides would take her out so she could lose some pent up energy, but it didn't happen. As a result, I was expecting her to be a bit goofy when it was time for me to turn her out. Unfortunately, the other barn hand, Irina, was nowhere to be found when I was turning the horses out, so I had to do it by myself. Not usually a problem, but not ideal. Got down to the last couple horses: Bebe and Cascade. I'd been putting off taking Cascade out because I'd hoped to find someone to take care of the pasture gate when I did it. Bebe is an old fella and usually quite the gentleman when turned out, so I decided to do him last, in case Cascade was a pill. Oi. In hindsight, I should've done him before her. Owell.
So I put a halter and lead rope on Cascade and take her out of her stall. Right away she was wanting to GO and be with her buddies. I stopped a couple times and made her circle a bit, until she stopped trying to just go and drag me along behind. She was energetic but okay after that, til we got to the pasture.
Let me just say that, yes, I know it's not ideal to take a horse through a gate and turn them out alone, especially when the horse is being a handfull. Yes, I should've waited til I could find someone to take care of the gate for me. But I didn't, and hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Anyhoo, we actually got through the gate fine. I latched it and turned her to face toward it so I could get her halter off. The horses know, of course, that once the halter is off, they're free and can zoom off to roll in the dirt and herd with buddies and such. It's not uncommon for them to feel the halter being unbuckled and think it's off when it isn't. This usually just means a little tug as they try to turn then realize they're still haltered. Cascade did this, but she just about lunged away. I yanked her back and grunted scoldingly, letting her know that wasn't acceptable. Then she did it again. Another yank and a swat on the neck. Okay, she stood there, all tensed and ready to go as soon as she was free. I went for the buckle again and started to undo it and she pulled again...so I tugged it and grunted at her...
...and she stood up.
She reared. A couple things happened. First, about 4000 gallons of adrenaline shot into my system. here I am with both hands in a horse's halter and suddenly her head is a LOT higher than it usually is, which means that 5'10" me doesn't have his feet on the ground briefly. Actually, I lost my grip on the halter. Next thing was that I managed to grab the lead rope with my left hand and the chinstrap of the halter with my right and pull her back down. Actually, according to Irina (who had decided to show up and was just leading Bebe up to the gate, unbeknownst to me) I yanked her down and forward a bit so her head was right in front of the gate and down low. As she was recovering from the surprise of that, and her weight was off balance to the front and her head was down, I undid the halter. She sprang back, spun and shot off up the hill. Lil 195 pound me manhandled the 1100 pound horse.
Now I've gotten irritated with the horses before when they've misbehaved, but never really angry at any of 'em. Perhaps because of recent stress and fatigue, though, I was downright furious with Cascade. I'm very ashamed to admit that I really wanted to hit her before she got out of range. Not a harmless neck slap, but to actually punch that mare. It bothers me that I could even consider that and I feel pretty bad about it. Fortunately, it didn't happen. About all I did was to use a few choice exclamations and make some improbable statements as to Cascade's parents and lineage and glue factories and such. That and fling my halter and lead onto the ground. Then I looked at my left hand.
I wear fingerless gloves for some barn stuff. Doing up girths, halters, bridles and such just aren't things that one can do easily when wearing full gloves. Obviously this leaves much of my fingers unprotected. When Cascade stood up and the halter was pulled from my hands, the middle finger of my left hand took a chunk of damage. There's some bruising along one entire side of it, but the real injury is the last segment, up round the fingernail. The halter tore off a couple layers of skin on one side, along with peeling back a big chunk of skin alongside the nail. Just below the cuticle is another chunk of missing skin layers. The whole fingertip is bruised and the joint is kinda stiff. It's all nice and swollen too. Owie. I'm used to cuts and scratches from the barn and hand injuries tend to bleed a bit, so I didn't realize how much damage had been done right off. Heck, I just rinsed it off, put a bandage on it and tried to pamper it the rest of the day there. When I got home and went to clean it out properly, I saw how much'd been done. Danged mare.
Oddly, I'm typing better with it all bandaged up. I think it's because it's slowing my typing down.
So that was how the old year ended and the new one started. Hopefully it's not a sign of what the rest of the year will be like.