Maybe Knitting

So I go to the ER cause I fell off my horse (again), and this time I know to say "8" when they say how bad is your pain cause you get great service. I'm going to try this in restaurants.

Anyway, since I fell off already 2 mos ago, I'm not as worried and it's fun to spend time alone in the car with Barry, too bad it always has to be with me and a shredded butt muscle.

The nurse takes my temperature and when she takes it out of my mouth, another nurse borrows the thermometer for 250 pd chest pains next door, and my nurse says "We keep losing thermometers, I think people are eating them. The only ones I can find are rectal thermometers." and I say, "Which one did I just have?"

Then they do xrays and every single person who works there acts like they're working in Subway, they're so desensitized to pain, so when I tell them I fell off my horse they say, "We get SO many people in here all cracked up from their horses! My cousin just broke her pelvis!" says the radiologist as she's positioning the machine to xray my pelvis.

I finally get to the doctor, who is not really a doctor but I believe what they call a Doctor's Little Buddy, who sees my chart and immediately talks about how his 5 yr old daughter every day asks if she can have a horse, and I'm thinking, wait, are we at a cocktail party? Do you want me to give you counseling on the best horse to buy, there's that awkward, "Yes, your finger seems to be bent the wrong way, but hey, should my daughter start riding?"

I get a shot of morphine when I say well, only if you have enough, and then the Buddy Doc takes my sore finger and pulls it straight out to fit it into a splint, like he's wrestling a freshwater salmon. I do start crying, and I feel my finger crack which is more like a 10 on the 10 scale. Why didn't I watch "Peter Pan" with Lilly today, I wanted to, I shouldn't have ridden, I was just trying to keep the horse in shape and afraid I'd fall asleep on the couch if I sat down. The Tiredness Curse of motherhood.

Then the doc mentions the dreaded "maybe see a hand surgeon," "might need pins to set it right," and oh well, sigh, it sinks in, I did get hurt. When he leaves and the nurse comes back in I whisper to her, "I don't want that guy to come back. I don't like him." And Barry says, "No offense." I guess part of their job is hearing people crying behind curtains. It's like folding laundry to them.

Now I type with a bandaged up finger, and my family helps me find a hand surgeon that takes poor people insurance, so hopefully I can get to one before my finger fuses itself all wrong like a jagged Christmas tree.

The worst part was, the first nurse looks at me and says, "do you even get your menstrual cycle anymore?" and I have to shake my head, because I am of no use reproductively now, and I told B I'm too old to be riding and he says nonsense, and Papa, his 97 yr old father says, "Don't you have any control over your wife?" and maybe it is the horse is too young, but sweet, and I am happier on a shorter and fatter steed - it may be best to actually buy a horse that suits me and the kids who want to ride. And enjoy less emergency rm visits. It's hard when you spend your whole life enjoying a kind of natural thing, riding and nature and the silence of that and then it's gotten all murky and confusing.

Barry says, "We should keep the horse." The guy who is always sensible, always says the most wonderful stuff. "You can still take him to the park, and just watch him run around. He's such a beautiful horse." And I say, "That's silly." We'll save money if I get rid of the horse. He says it does take alot of my time. I say, the time I spend out there is what keeps me from killing the kids.

Maybe a quieter, older horse. Maybe no horse. Maybe knitting.