Some things you need to know before we go on..
In 2001 I was kicked by a racehorse when I was working at a rehab barn. (Take the injured horse off the track, give him some TLC, rehab, hopefully put repaired horse back on the track to make the owners and trainers happy and rich) The kick was to my right shoulder, in the deltoid region. It was the dead of winter (in New Hampshire), I was all set and gung ho to join the Army in ONE week. It was a bone deep laceration that bit through 4 layers of clothes; the t-shirt and the sweatshirt were destroyed, the inner windbreaker and the outer heavy denim jacket were salvageable. See - track horses wear "toe grabs" on their shoes. It is a raised bar of metal to help them grip and dig in better (usually not into people's shoulders). I saw the ears go back and the legs go back and I backed up into the wall as she let fly. Some people say having done this it most likely saved me from a broken arm. Others say that if I hadn't been up against a wall the injury wouldn't have been as severe. Its over and done with, instinct to try and avoid a blow that I saw coming too late.
So I called the owner of the barn, explained to her what happened (she was a State Police dispatcher as her normal job) told her that I was going to finish cleaning stalls and feed and go to the hospital when I was done. Well *that* didn't happen. As I was talking (in the heated office) my shoulder started to thaw out and as I was rubbing it I realized that my hand was coming away bloody. So of course I had to see it. And it really didn't hit me how serious it was until I actually pulled the layers away and looked down into the hole in my arm. So I called the other girl that works there when I don't, packed my arm in snow, called a friend to come pick me up and fed horses while I was waiting.
The hospital triage staff took one look at my face and one look at the blood soaked bandage and bustled me into the back right away. I ranked that day - it usually takes an act of God to not sit in the waiting room for the obligatory hour before they even call your name! So they had to get x-rays and you can imagine how that hurt so I won't go into it. But really - if they suspect you broke your arm - why make it move in all kinds of funky and painful ways to get a picture of it??? I know, I know, but some knock-out juice would have been nice. I eventually did get the knock-out juice so they could sew my arm back up. 4 cm deep, 10 cm wide laceration (I kid you not - I looked on the op report) So they kept me overnight for observation and I had to make a very dicey call to my recruiter and explain to him what had happened.
I made good progress with recovering, got the stitches out in 5 days instead of the usual 7-14 because I had a date with the military. I went into the MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station), they took one look at my arm and said "no way". So I got a note saying to report in 2 months once I had healed adequately. Not really sure what I or my recruiter was thinking looking back on it but we tried. So I recovered. I did a PT home program tailored to keep me fit for the military and get my arm doing well again. It worked so well I decided a mere month after the horse kick to go with some of my old team mates to an ice hockey tournament in Canada with a newly developed college team. We had fun, had some good games and overall I think it was a good experience for the newer players to play a "different brand of hockey". And I returned home ready to roll. No roadblocks this time, went back to MEPS, got sworn in and I was off to the great State of Oklahoma...
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