Thursday, December 13, 2012

Equestrian Challenge: Day 9

Day 09- Any injuries that occurred from riding

I've been pretty lucky, as injuries go.

As a child I had a steady stream of tree-branch induced slices, a few knocked and bruised knees, and i'm sure more bruises than was at all necessary. But, as for those minor occurances, I can't remember anything very bad.
In 2009 I thought it would be a smart idea to jump on a green horse bareback for a photo, and proceeded to get my ass dumped in the dirt... The photo really describes it all:


It was a good little reminder that one should never get too cocky, or too proud, around a horse. It also resulted in a severely fractured left wrist, which put a damper on the end to my summer. However, it managed to heal much better than any of my doctors expected. (They were all harassing me with images of horrible pins and metal plates everytime I came in for a check-up). Whoever that 2 am doctor was that set my wrist, he did a damn good job, thank you kind sir.

Then, that fall, I was working at another ranch, riding horses, and a big palomino absolutely massacred me. I can't even remember the damn horses name, but I jumped up, and he was dead still, wouldn't move an inch. This, in my professional opinion, is always a recipe for disaster. I attempted to get him to move left, and he proceeded to rodeo buck me to the moon and back. I had no chance. I landed back and head first, and proceeded to watch as his hoof narrowly missed my face. I rolled, he ran off, it was bad. I ended up with some bad aches and pains, and a decently bad concussion.

Finally, the wimpiest one of the three, this summer I had a horse irish dance on my foot, i.e. she stomped on it and wouldn't let go. My foot was one big mottled bruise, ft. some blood bruising, and I lost feeling on the top of my foot. I also was having a really hard time clenching my toes. 4 months later and I'm feeling regaining feeling. Sigh... Horses...




So, as far as bad injuries go, those three are the worst I can think of. Perhaps my mind is hiding the rest from me, because I honestly can't pull anymore up, and i'm sure there's been a few. Lately, I've been lucky, my only issue is two terribly bad shoulders that cause me a lot of grief. However, thanks to a car accident (thanks, but no thanks), I was required to go to physiotherapy. I was diagnosed with pretty bad horizontal whiplash, and it made all my issues in my shoulders kind of bubble over the surface. My pyshio is absolutely wicked though, and "needles" me, which is where they take an acupuncture needle and literally twist the needle around in your muscle until it releases. This means that when my shoulders are brutally tight, my muscles will spasm over, and over again. A lot of people really don't like this kind of treatment, as it's uncomfortable, and can be painful in the moment, but also for a couple days afterwards, but I love it - it has worked wonders for me.

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