Accidents Happen…

Hello all! I want to first and foremost apologize for my absence, as I know I last left you with exciting tales of my progress with Tara and my preparation for our shows. I only ended up doing a show and a half with Tara, but feel that they went very well! I’ll get back to the shows in a minutes, but your probably scratching your head as to why I only completed a show and half with Tara. Well my friends, accidents happen and unfortunately I am not excluded from them. During the second show, I fell of and by some strange cause of nature, I manged to completely break my femur in 2. They say breaking the femur is the most painful bone in the body you can break, and I can attest to this with certainty. So I’ve been laid up in the hospital recovering from this and relearning how to use my leg now that there’s a titanium rod in it…

Let’s start at the beginning. Tara and I did the first kids day show with Dave last Tuesday and considering it was the first time I had to really carry a show and do a Baston Course, lance passes, and a ground fight, I’m pretty happy with how it went. There’s so much going on and it just zips by so fast! But Tara and I got though the show, and even though we had some issues to address with her trying to rush our departures, I am so proud of our success together! I definitely forgot the ground fight and Dave ended up smashing me into the ground multiple times because I didn’t hear him yelling “stay down!” at me… Oops! But Wednesday was going so much better, Tara and I worked better through the Baston course and I was actually able to make some hits on Dave rather then freezing up and getting pummeled. The trouble came when we were setting up for lance passes, we definitely didn’t have the ground help we really needed, and I could tell Tara already had ants in her pants. She does her job so well, she runs strait and always stops perfect at the end. However her only fault is she gets excited and wants to rush her departures. She started getting antsy and I tried to talk to her with my legs and it worked for about half a second. Then Tara decided we were off and away we went. I dropped my lance and tried to get my balance, but had already been rocked back and found myself trying to pull myself up by the reins. I know how important it is not to ruin a horses mouth by mercilessly pulling on the reins, so I made the decision to let go and try to stick the landing. I tumbled off the back, landed on my head and shoulders just fine, then felt my left leg land and was suddenly in the most excruciating pain of my life. As you can imagine, all sorts of people rushed to me and I had to fight through my tears and pain to describe how to take off my armor so they wouldn’t cut the leather straps. Apparently my femur was angulated, and my left foot was touching my right although my knee was strait… Ich! They had to pull the bone strait before they could move me and I felt the two ends scrape each other as they pulled my leg straight. I almost blacked out because the pain was so bad. I was transported to the ER where I was pumped full of drugs while they took radiographs and tried to get all my info. Surgery was scheduled the next day and I was transported to a room to spend the next 21 hours trying to manage through terrible pain.

In a nutshell, surgery went well and I now have a titanium rod and pins from my hip to my knee. Surgery was a week ago and I’m still dealing with pain, as well as going through physical therapy to help strengthen my leg. I can’t lift it by my own and have to use a walker to shuffle around. I just was transferred to a rehab clinic to start a more intense therapy so I can get better sooner. I’m learning the strength of my own body and pushing myself everyday so I can be back on a horse soon. I was originally told 6 months, but the doctor believes I’ll heal quickly and it won’t be that long. I’m so eager to get things functioning normally again, I’m really trying to push myself. But let me tell you, it’s a huge eye opener when it takes you 30 excruciating minutes just to go to the bathroom. And when  you have to grit your teeth and fight back tears to bend your knee, or have someone help you put your clothes on or get into bed. Basically, this is probably the hardest thing, both physically and mentally, that I’ve had to work through. It doesn’t help that my pain meds give me weird mood swings and make me nauseous and tired all the time. But this isn’t a pity party for Liz, no, this is a motivational “screw you leg, I’m going to get better and get right back to jousting” party. Because I’ve worked so hard to get where I’m at, and I’m not letting a broken leg get in my way when I have so much more to accomplish.

I felt me and Tara were really starting to work well together, and I want to make clear that she, in no way, shape, or form, caused this or was even a part of it. Tara is an amazing little horse and in no way was malicious or “out of control” when I fell off. I’m really getting tired of people going, “oh you got bucked off a horse?” or “that horse isn’t safe, you shouldn’t ride her again”. Excuse me? You weren’t there, you have no idea what happened, so please educate yourself first before making assumptions. Sorry if that sounds very accusatory, but I’m just fed up with people at this time. I’m very excited to continue working with her when I get better, and and eager to see what our future holds together.

Anyways, that’s what’s going on with me right now, and although it’s a setback, I’m more than confident I’ll get through it. I want to send a heartfelt thank you to all of my amazing joust family for being here for me. They’re there to hold my hand, give me someone to talk to, and keep me hopefully for the future. I’ve had someone visit me everyday since I’ve been here and it really means a lot that they care so much. So thank you to Chris and Collin, Jesse, and Dave and KD. Your companionship means more than you know!

I hope to heal up and be well enough to travel soon, at which point I’ll go back to Colorado to heal up before jumping back into things. Thanks everyone for your well wishes!

The break

Yey titanium!

My Horsie pal from Kelly, Barb, and Fin 🙂