TomS Words of Wisdom

I spent Thursday, Friday and most of Saturday, intensely resting and trying to heal from last Sunday's accident. This meant no horse activities, no-computer, no cooking Turkey, very little phone and very little texting. Progress has been slow with a few setbacks along the way. I did make a second trip in to the Group Health urgent care on Saturday morning to get some new pains checked out and meds refilled. But this afternoon I finally felt improved enough to resume an almost normal activity level again. I still have some limits to range of motion in my neck and two or three specific muscles that complain, loudly, when overused. Still have a black eye. While the muscles for driving have recovered, sitting in a low-backed chair and/or typing is very tiring. Walking around is also fine, as long as my right arm/shoulder isn't too tired. I'm hoping to resume a full work schedule tomorrow, though with limits on a number of activities. I have an appointment late Tuesday morning with my Primary Care Physician, Dr. Zeidman at Group Health in Redmond, after which I hope to have a more detailed recovery plan / time-line.

Big thanks to Alison for keeping tabs on me and being a knowledgeable resource. Also thanks to everyone who has offered to help out.

Norval Rhodes (NorvalRhodes) on Twitter:

Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it. -Tori Amos

Lena stone bruise continues to improve. She's putting more weight on her right front hoof today.


However we did have a bit of an accident this morning as I was taking the soaking bag off her foot. While I was hunched over unbuckling the bag, the stall cleaner asked if, when I was done, he could move Lena across the aisle so he could clean her stall. Unfortunately Lena took this an an invitation, proceeded to exit her stall and I got caught in a tuck position between her and the stall wall. While this could have resulted in a catastrophic injury, I was able to tuck and roll enough to not hit my head or break my neck.

After a quick self assessment, it was clear that I injured my neck, but that it was not life threating. However it was painful and that a trip to urgent care to get checked out was in order.

Big thanks to Alison for coming out to PCF, giving me a ride to the Group Health urgent care at the new Bellevue Medical Center and for hanging out in Bellevue until I was discharged. After checking in the triage nurse gave me a hard collar to hold my neck still until they could fully examine it. While I'm sure that this was the safest thing to do, my injured neck mussels really didn't like being immobilized. It took a few hours to progress through the system, get two rounds of x-rays taken, get some pain meds and be discharged with a soft collar and instructions like no lifting, bending or playing tug-a-war with horses. The best moments were when the x-ray tech let me take the hard collar off for the second round of x-rays.

Not sure yet if I'm going to go into work in the morning. Will likely depend on if I still need to that the prescription pain meds which are incompatible with driving.

This evening Becky came out and helped soak Lena's hoof, after which I took her out to the recently renovated Fall City Roadhouse for some dinner. Since I'm out of commission as far as horse care goes for the next week to ten days, we need to reassess how to give Lena her treatment and who will longe for the Tammy Clinics. Please, call or text if you can help out with either of these.

Update 11/29

Update 12/15

Update 12/20

Vet visit:
1.5 hr, $211 (including meds)
Update e-mails, phone calls, text messages:
1 hr
Shopping for treatment supplies:
2 hr, $60 (including .5 hr timeout $20 for iSushi dinner)
Setting up treatment supplies and soaking hoof:
1 hr
Setting up stall at front barn for a week and shuffling horses around:
1.5 hr, $42
Knowing that the horse is resting well and will be okay:
Priceless!

Seattle team wins $900,000 in Space Elevator Games - Yahoo! News:

David Bashford is one of my co-workers at the toothbrush lab. In is off hours he's been building a climber(s) and support systems for LaserMotive LLC to compete in one of NASA's Centennial Challenges.

This past week they were the only team who's laser beam powered climber made it to the top of a kilometer long cable suspended from a helicopter. Their climber went fast enough to earn $900k out of the $2 million prize money.

With the return of the winter rains, the low lying areas around the farm have filled back up with water. This particular patch of water will probably grow and shrink but never really go away until next May or June.

I really like being able to post pictures directly from my phone to Flickr and then a link to Twitter. It makes catching and sharing these kinds of images really easy. All I need now is an app for my phone that will allow me to edit (rotate, crop, tag, etc.) my Flickr photos without having to hit my PC.

I see that my brother, is posting similar photos from his phone too.