On September 14th my family and I went to a cabin near Haverfordwest with another family whom we are good friends with. There was a rope swing at the site. The swing had been there for years. Many adults had been swinging on it with the kids, including men who are bigger than I am. I was encouraged — nay, begged — by my kiddos and the other adults to try it with them. Being a fun loving Good Sport, I got on.
More fool am I.
It swung out over a rocky creek that was five feet below the level of the bank above it. When I was near the top of the arc (about where my eldest daughter is in the below picture) the rope suddenly unwound (not broke) from the tree limb.
I am really grateful it wasn’t my husband or one of my kids on the swing when it happened.
I dropped 8 feet ass-first onto rocks and a few inches of icy water. The EMTs came. (They were very nice men named P. Thomas and I. Jordan, whom I promised to mention in my blog whilst I was high on the gas and air they were giving me for the pain.) They whisked me by ambulance to the local A&E (that’s the emergency room for my American readers) where the kindly medical people x-rayed the shit out of me. It was a miracle! No broken bones! I am a Neanderthal woman! There was only the usual crack in my ass.
That was the good news. The bad news was that I had a considerable amount of soft tissue damage and DEEP bruising, which would cause me great and terrible ouches.
I was in hospital for 24 hours because, even with morphine, I was experiencing too much ‘discomfort” to move. I got to use a bedpan to make my tinkles. So much fun for me AND the nurse, y’all. Thankfully, the staff of Withybush General Hospital in Haverfordwest were AMAZING! the physio came and was able to help me get up on Sunday, so I could hobble to the loo with a walking frame thereafter.
They discharged me from the hospital and sent me home for my Sweet Babou to deal with. I was like a flobber worm for the first week. All I could do was lay in bed and pray for the anti-inflammatory meds I was taking to be granted the strength of black-tar heroin. Happily, I’m a bit more mobile now. My back remains pretty painful, tho. I still need a walking frame to get around. Nonetheless, I am healing rapidly. I can even sit up for bits of time! I can make my tinkles in the loo without help!
Poor Sweet Babou has been a champ. He is having to do everything … the house stuff, the kid stuff, and taking care of me. It is, in some ways, the worst part of the injury — that I can’t help him and have to be a burden.
Anyway, my inability to sit up and type is why it’s been so long since I’ve posted to my blog or shared a historical article on social media. I’m sorry I just disappeared without being able to explain why. Hopefully, I can start blogging again now because I can sit up an type for a whole 30 minutes at a time and I my back is improving daily.
Yay!