Hard lessons learned in 2009

At the beginning of 2009 if you had told me all that I had to experience I would not have believed you. The thought of my body betraying me with injury after injury would never have crossed my mind. I was invincible in my mind.

I never really had too much trouble with pain or injury except when I was paralyzed from the neck down as a young child. (Another story). I just thought 2009 would be like every other year. Yes I'd learn lessons, I'd grow and evolve but not like this.

I am grateful I survived it. That I can talk about it and I have learned many life altering lessons from them.  Some so painful it still brings me to tears just thinking about them. I so look forward to 2010 and maybe a slight reprieve. I just smudged my home thinking that if there are negative energies floating around I will rid myself of these to give myself a fighting chance.

The year started out with me doing just normal chores on the farm.  It was February and I was out feeding horses and then headed down to fill my outdoor wood stove.  It heats my house with a boiler system.   It was dark, around 10 pm. I did not turn the lights on because they were not working at the time. I went up to the stove, which sits on a large cement pad, and proceeded to trip at the edge of the cement. I fell forward into a wheel barrow and my body slammed into the arm of the device. It broke under the strain as it was rotted, thank God. It was my left breast that took the impact.

I did not realize the injury to my right arm until 3 weeks later. The left breast now was purple, healing and felt better so the pain in the right arm then got my attention. Yep, it was broke, a fracture but still painful.

A dear friend chipped in to help on the farm. He helped do chores and any lifting that needed to be done. I hate being hurt.  I truly hate asking for help and being physically vulnerable. This just was no picnic in my view. Yet I let him help out without too many complaints, in my mind that is.

Well then comes April and a beautiful day to go horseback riding. Oh to hit the trails in the spring. I took my friend, we saddled up and off we went. The ride went great until trying to slow my horse down he started to spin and buck. What I didn't know is that he had a bad tooth and his bit hit that. Of course I can usually hang on to a buck but I grabbed with the broken arm. I was too stubborn to get it cast and so it was just bare and healing. Ugh. Needless to say I was thrown to the right, on the right arm and back onto my right hip.

The pain was immediate, something was really wrong. I couldn't move, I had incredible pain running down my right leg. My whole body hurt and I could do nothing but try to breathe. My brain scrambled as to what to try to alleviate the pain. My friend was chasing my horse threw the field, down the road, towards the farm.

He then brought back a truck I could not kneel, bend or stand. He loaded me in the back of the pickup truck and drove home. He carried me sobbing in the back door to my bedroom floor. He needed to change my clothes as my bladder had released during the ordeal with all the pain. How humiliating, this has never happened and I felt so awful for him and me.

The next 3 days was pure torture. My dear friend had to carry me to the toilet, bathe me, feed me, wait on me hand and foot. I hated every moment of it.  I prayed for my body to miraculously heal itself. No such luck.  I could barely move I was in so much pain. I am lucky enough to live in a very small town and have an ER physician as a friend. He gave me a script for pain and this helped take some of the pain away.

Day after day I had to be helped, taken care of, nurtured.  It was torture in my mind. I was always so independent. So strong that nothing could hurt me and I always took care of myself. Even in childhood I managed to care for myself as my parents didn't.  This was different.  I needed help and was not happy about it.

I did finally heal, month after month I got better. The tenderness finally left and I could wear my jeans buttoned again. I did have to do some physical therapy with my Egoscue guy. I had had a pinched nerve and bulging disk with whip lash the summer before and was still healing from all that too.

I had a lot of time to reflect on what my friends mean to me.  How they were there day after day, week to week and even month after month as I healed.  I am so grateful that they were there as my mood was about as low as it has ever been.  I truly had to grieve the loss of movement.  The thought of never riding my horses again put me in the pits of Hell.  The vulnerability I experienced was so raw that it definitely has changed me, for the better.

I so learned from this experience and hope 2010 will be a bit easier on my body. I know my soul will still evolve but I hope the Universe takes it a bit easier on me, please.