Kicked! The recovery

Finding meaning as the healing begins

- SUSAN LAGSDIN

(In the August issue, I described how on a perfect day for a horseback ride in the Methow, I was kicked by my horse while clearing a trail. After on-the-spot treatment for several injures by first aid professionals, I was flown down to Wenatchee in a medical evacuation helicopter. In this second part of my story, I navigate the route to recovery.)

First came the fixes, two long operations over 11 hours at Central Washington Hospital.

Surgery on the right thigh’s two breaks yielded a titanium rod down the center of the femur and a metal plate to bolster it. Surgery on the right shoulder gave me an elaborate screw and-strap system to reconnect three scapula parts. Broken ribs? Cracked fibula? “They’ll heal on their own.” Torn left knee ligaments? “We’ll wait and see.”

My memory of those five days was of long hallway ceilings en route to imaging facilities and operating rooms and being blissfully cocooned in bed with what I recall as profound — and as yet irretrievable — thoughts. With medication and state-of-the-art comfort care I felt no pain and suffering at all.

It was then that I firmed my resolve in two ways.

First, I have always considered myself somewhat of a dilettante: passably creative, passably smart, an OK rider, an OK writer, a dabbler in history, a teller of jokes, a sketcher, a Jeopardy quick-draw. Here, I thought, is my time to shine! A project I can do really well! I’ll put all my time and energy into regaining mobility. I will become an expert in learning to move again.

And I realized that this time in my life needed to have meaning. If I didn’t come out of this with something useful for myself or others, then it was pointless, and I don’t do pointless with the universe. (Thank you to anyone who resisted the urge to say, “This must have been part of some greater plan…”)