Thursday, April 21, 2005
Perspective
A little trauma to put your petty concerns into perspective. Possible new job vs. pretty good job already. Life or death?
My friend Shelby had her baby 5 weeks ago. Happy and healthy. Shelby shows horses and was compliant with doctor orders. She did not work out her finicky show horse. She did not lunge her new Clydesdale show horse. She was riding in the ring with an extremely gentle 22 year old horse belonging to her trainer. This horse is the perfect horse for a young child to use to be a beginner rider. They were walking, not trotting, simple walking.
The horse tripped.
Went down on both knees and hit his poor head. Before going further, the horse is FINE people. Shelby went over his head and landed flat on her chest and abdomen. No loss of consciousness. She thought she'd merely gotten the wind knocked out of her. Drove home. Before getting home, the pain in her abdomen kept worsening and she thought she might have cracked a rib. Called her husband and stopped at an urgent care. They immediately sent her to the Emergency Care Department. She started getting dizzy and her blood pressure dropped to 80/40. Air lifted her to the closest Trauma One center. At that point she was so badly off (internal bleeding) that she had to be intubated and was a "hair's breadth" from coding. Complete transfusion to replace TOTAL blood volume. Surgery to remove the chunks of what was left of her shattered spleen.
After all this on Monday, by Wednesday they're discharging her because it's all over. No spleen, but that's okay really. Not great, but definately okay. Her mother had just left to go home (out of state) on Sunday and on Tuesday was back.
I work in the rehab center next door to the hospital. I can see the Life Flight heli-pad from our parking lot. I saw the friggin' helicopter that day. Had NO clue it was a close friend.
It all just makes you think.
My friend Shelby had her baby 5 weeks ago. Happy and healthy. Shelby shows horses and was compliant with doctor orders. She did not work out her finicky show horse. She did not lunge her new Clydesdale show horse. She was riding in the ring with an extremely gentle 22 year old horse belonging to her trainer. This horse is the perfect horse for a young child to use to be a beginner rider. They were walking, not trotting, simple walking.
The horse tripped.
Went down on both knees and hit his poor head. Before going further, the horse is FINE people. Shelby went over his head and landed flat on her chest and abdomen. No loss of consciousness. She thought she'd merely gotten the wind knocked out of her. Drove home. Before getting home, the pain in her abdomen kept worsening and she thought she might have cracked a rib. Called her husband and stopped at an urgent care. They immediately sent her to the Emergency Care Department. She started getting dizzy and her blood pressure dropped to 80/40. Air lifted her to the closest Trauma One center. At that point she was so badly off (internal bleeding) that she had to be intubated and was a "hair's breadth" from coding. Complete transfusion to replace TOTAL blood volume. Surgery to remove the chunks of what was left of her shattered spleen.
After all this on Monday, by Wednesday they're discharging her because it's all over. No spleen, but that's okay really. Not great, but definately okay. Her mother had just left to go home (out of state) on Sunday and on Tuesday was back.
I work in the rehab center next door to the hospital. I can see the Life Flight heli-pad from our parking lot. I saw the friggin' helicopter that day. Had NO clue it was a close friend.
It all just makes you think.
# posted by Qeltic @ 8:12 AM 
