The Best Day Ever

It was the end of summer break in 1986, and I was about to return for my final year of high school, Grade 12. The trees were losing their summer emerald green and starting to take on the olive green they get before they turn gold in the fall.It had been a good summer, I got to lease a horse, Beejay, and ride him whenever I wanted. Cute little black quarter horse.

But now... now I had just gotten the best news a horse obsessed girl could get. See, four years ago we went to go and see a newborn filly, only 4 days old. She was an appendix quarter horse (which means she had thoroughbred blood) and a deep golden palomino with a star and one stocking on her back leg. I had the cutest photos of her. She became my dream horse.

But now, four years later, her owner was going on Sabbatical and needed someone to care for her horses for 6 months. In some sort of twist of fate, my parents actually agreed that I could take her to my boarding stable and she would be just like my ow horse for 6 months. Nothing could go wrong, it was the best thing ever.

So we drove the hour or so to South Cooking Lake to the little farm with the four horses: the big bay appy showjumper, the grey old cobby mare, and Solitaire and her mum. The horse trailer hadn't arrived yet, so we put a bridle on Tara and I got a leg up onto her bare back. Apparently no one had thought that I would need a saddle. But I was 17 and confident and I has my mom to myself for the day and the sun was shining interspersed with puffy little clouds.

I straightened my helmet, it was a few sizes too big for me but we'd stuffed the inside of the brim with tissues to make it stay on, it was a bit wobbily, but it was all I had. I rode Tara around in a small circle at a walk and then a figure eight at a trot. This was hard for me, just about all my riding experience had been in weekly lessons in an arena, plus the month with Beejay, and my bareback riding was minimal. There is a huge difference between being held snugly in place with a comfortable saddle on an experienced school horse and balancing on the wriggley hide of a greenbroke filly with 30 days training.

Mom wanted to see me go faster, and that sounded like fun so I thought I'd take Tara down the little hill and canter her back up. I turned her towards the hill and it was like she didn't want to go. I asked her again, using a bit of leg and rein and trotted her down the hill.

Tara's mom neighed. The horse van arrived and rattled. Tara whirled around back towards her mum and dropped her shoulder and I lost balance and slid down a bit down her neck. My helmet fell off and rolled down the hill, uselessly. I wasn't able to get back up and fell to the ground.... Bright Yellow. Dandilion Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Yellow Like the Sun. Palomino Yellow. Every Yellow there is filled my vision.

I was lying face down in the dirt. I lifted my head up, kind of embarassed that I'd fallen in front of the owner and the trailer driver. There was blood in the dirt. "Shit" I said. "Nicola!" I hear my mom shieking and her running towards me. "We're going to the hospital." The... what? I tried to touch my face by my mom pulled my wrist away. "Keep your hands away... don't touch your face." I didn't get it. My mom drove the car and backed it up to me and I was really weak for some reason and only managed to get into the back of the stationwagon. Mom drove very urgently. She stopped at the next farm, some other people we knew by cooincidence. "I'm goingto try and get you some ice." We drove up the bumpy road to the next farm. The bumps were very uncomfortable. Luckily, someone was home and we got a bag of ice. They stood there inspecting me and discussing what to do. I felt very embarassed. My face itched. I tried to touch my face again and my mom grabbed my wrist again and said that it was very important that I don't touch my face. We left the farm and started the hour long drive to the hospital.

I sneaked touching my face while my mom was driving. my nose was flat and for some reason when I went straight up I could feel my left eye. That wasn't right. Left of my nose was too sore to touch. I tenatively felt over to the right and felt the edge of torn skin and felt a strong gut feeling to keep my hand away. I laid in the back of the station wagon and tried to focus on the clouds in the sky, but everything was blurry.

Finally we got to the hospital. They put me on a gurney and rolled me straight in, and I thought "wow I must be bad". There was blood trickling into my ears and I kept needing to wipe them and they kept swatting my hands and saying don't touch your face. I must have been unable to speak because they just ignored me saying "my ears are itchy". They put in an IV and must have put some strong painkiller in there because nothing hurt. It didn't hurt in the car, either. I lied there patiently while the doctors and nurses fiddled and mussed around my face. My stepdad arrived at some time. I was glad my brother wasn't around.

We went to X-ray. The technician said there was two things he hated, that was horses and baseballs. I didn't like the technician.

 A nurse, Ron or Rob came in and I was to hold his hand. They said they were going to do something that would be "a little uncomfortable". They couldn't put me to sleep cause I might go into a coma.

My parents said they were going to go for coffee.  They left on me.

A bunch of nurses and doctors surrounded me. My arms were tied down. Rob held my hand. Some people were putting their hand on either side of my scalp. "Ready" went a mans voice and they started pusking my nose. "noooo don't...." they pushed harder. I held Rob's hand tight, so tight, I was going to break the bones in his hands. The sound of bone crunching against bone. Rob's hands were short and squat and hairy and his nails were wide and flat. Ipressed my feet against each other. More Crunching. I held Robs hands so tight I swear I would have broken anyone else's hands. I wonder if he remembers me now, 25 years later. The kid with the crushed skull. "We had to put your nose back in the middle of your face". At the time I didn't know why I wasn't put under or put out. I was upset my parents abandonded me for this worst thing, my mom was an ER nurse she should have been able to stay. But she didn't.

I guess they did all they could that night and rather than have me stay at the hospital, surprisingly, they sent me home for 2 weeks. The Swelling had to go down enough so they could do surgery. They sent me home with some T3's and a tin barf bowl.

Mom set me up in the basement on the Lazy Boy chair. I was tired and I wanted to lie down in bed. She got ice to put on my face and water to drink and and a bell to ring if I needed them and a huge bowl to puke in. I wasn't allowed to lie down because the blood might pool in my lungs and I would drown in my own blood in my sleep. There were 2 boxes of tissues, a garbage bin, hydrogen peroxide, vaseline, everything. I wasn't go get up and go to the washroom on my own in case I fell. She thought of everything.

I didn't sleep that night, I survived. I worked on getting the godforsaken blood out of my ears but my skin had become super tender and so I had to keep doing it with breaks. During the night ny eyes swelled shut from the broken nose and the eyelashes glued together with blood.

So I got to work, cleaning myself up. Any sip of water was immediately expelled along with clotted blood, there was so much blood I'd swallowed it was unreal. I kept doing it thoughto get rid of the blood from my stomach, it felt like the right thing to do. I gingerly dabbed at my ears and eyelashes with wet tissues and wet Q-Tips, trying to dissolve the dried blood.

I had one bowl for clean water and one for dirty water. Soon the dirty water looked like it was blood as well. I think I eventually got a few hours of sleep.

One of the Worst Days Ever

I don't know why, but news travels fast and my school friends wanted to come and see me. Holy fuck, no! They can't see me like this all nasty with blood everywhere and a fucking Tampax taped under my nose to catch the blood and my whole face practically covered in nasty black stiches.

So 3 friends came over even though I expressley told them I didn't want visitors. I put a shawl over my face to save them from the horror. They kept saying it was ok, that I could take off the shawl and that they are good friends and would be forever (Where are they now? Oh yeah my PAIN was too much for them and they "got on with their lives". One said she didn't like me any more because the pain changed me.) and it was ok and they were sure my face wasn't that bad and I could remove the shawl. So finally I was convinced. One of them gasped. I tried to hold open the corner of one eye to see them (my eyes were swollen completley shut by this time and projected out further then my nose from being full of blood) and I saw their looks of horror. I felt vindicated and hurt at the same time. I replaced the shawl. They made excuses and left.

I went back to cleaning up the blood. I spent 8 days in the chair before my nosebleed was down enough that I could lie down and it took 2 weeks before the swelling was down enough that I could have Reconstructive surgery 1 out of 4, the one where they put the damn wires in (I got as many wires taken out as I could but they can't remove them all and they can't do an MRI of my head because of them).

(My horse was never delivered to the stable, they sold her to someone so I never got closure, never got to tell het I fogive her, never got to say goodbye or pat her. You would think I would deserve at least that.)