I’ve owned and cared for horses for 50 years and like most horse girls, one of the most valuable lessons I learned is to hold it together in a crisis. If you’re around horses long enough, it’s inevitable that you’ll run into emergencies, tough injuries and any of a million crises that horses seem prone to. You learn to keep your head in the game, do what must be done and if you lose it later, ok, but in the moment when our horses need us, stay focused and do the right thing.
Those lessons, while hard learned, really do translate into real life. My daughter is going to be married on Saturday. The wedding has been scaled down due to COVID from a 150 person gala in a barn to a small wedding in the yard. That’s ok because it’s all about the joy we feel for this wonderful young couple who are ready to commit themselves to each other. But here’s the thing. My kids and I have faced some really tough things in the past few years. My sister’s death while she was staying with us while trying to escape from an abusive husband. My husband’s job loss and his heartbreaking death two years ago. The injury to my beloved Shire and his subsequent death. He was the last of the horses Mr. Chai and I had through the years, among dozens of rescued horses, dogs, cats, donkeys, geese and other sundry little creatures that needed a home.
This wedding was the bright spot. The joy we have been holding onto during dark times. Earlier this week, my 88 year old Mom was injured by a careless tech during dialysis. What should have been a routine day turned into a nightmare when she started bleeding into her arm. They tried to shoo her out the door, but my “horse injury radar” went on because I just didn’t like the way she looked. I told the nurse I thought something was wrong, but she said, “Oh, she’s fine. Just get her home and let her rest,” as she literally pushed my Mom out the door in a wheel chair while dragging my Mom’s walker behind her.
I got out the door and looked at my Mom, whose head lolled to the side as she started dry heaving and I raced back into the dialysis center, calling for nurses. Two of them came out, took one look at my Mom and whisked her back into the center and called an ambulance. What nurse #1 hadn’t told me is the tech nicked a vein inside my Mom’s arm, four days after she had surgery on that spot, and it was bleeding internally.
That was Monday. My Mom has been in the hospital on a combination of pain killers and morphine with an arm the size of a football. She is lucky to be alive, but she has gone from a lively, active, up-on-current events livewire to someone who looks like she’s in a coma, moaning in pain and barely able to eat. The nurses and doctors at the hospital are wonderful, but she is going to miss my daughter’s wedding. My Mom is the hub of the wheel in my family; a loving, caring, wonderful presence and I pray to God we don’t lose her.
All because a careless tech was in a hurry. I want to scream. I want to cry my eyes out. I want to wait outside the dialysis center and punch him in the face. I want my Mom back, wearing the outfit she chose so carefully for her grand-daughter’s big day. I want to hold my daughter as she breaks down and tell her it will be ok and that Grammie will be there to see her get married.
But I am a horse girl. I will keep it together and I will stay focused on what matters: advocating for my Mom and making my daughter’s day the best day possible under these circumstances. I have to thank all the wonderful horses I’ve known, the lessons I’ve learned from the countless hours caring for them, the wonderful mentors and veterinarians who have been role models to me in times of crisis. I will get through this because I am a horse girl and that’s what we do.
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