Sidelined

2 weeks ago, I started getting a stomach ache on my way home from work. It wasn't too bad at first. But it got pretty bad, pretty quick, and by 8:30 I had made my husband come home from work (he works swing shift in the summer) and take me to the ER, thinking it was appendicitis. 

The ER was busy, but passing out in triage will get you in the back faster. Yay? I finally got some pain meds/anti nausea meds through an IV drip and had to wait around until they could get my in for a CT scan. By midnight, I'd had the scan and they determined it was in fact my appendix and it needed to come out. I hung out in the hospital not sleeping all night, and finally had the surgery the next day at about noon. 

Drugged and bored in the ER 

I managed to recover pretty quickly and was back to part days at work two days later, but the nurse told me I shouldn't ride for 4-6 weeks, unless I want to get internal scar tissue in my abdomen, which is apparently a bad thing. Hm. I go in for my post-op appointment this week, and I'm hoping since I'm making such a quick recovery that I can go back to riding soon. Especially since my favorite clinician is coming up in 2 weeks, and I need to get back on the pony! 

When I was talking with the Dr., he noticed my unicorn stuffie. I told him that any time someone in my group of horsey friends is in the hospital, we need to have unicorn magic. Then I realized that my friends are in the hospital more than is normal. I guess that comes with being in a high-risk sport. Even outside of the broken bones and sprains that tend to come with horses, my trainer was in and out of the hospital a couple years ago with thyroid cancer, a friend of ours just recently had a lump removed, and I had my appendix out. We are definitely using up our unicorn magic, but it's worked so far. Here's hoping it continues! 

Me and unicorn stuffie and my unicorn sweatshirt after being released

There's a blog hop going around right now, and one of the questions is something about being friends with your trainer. I am so happy to count my trainer/coach as one of my closest friends. We have been in the teacher/student relationship (both directions! I taught her an art class), the employer/employee relationship, and we're still good friends. When I texted her that I was in the hospital, she was ready to drop everything and come (she brought the unicorn and food for my husband the next morning, which was amazing...the poor guy was running between  home, work and hospital all night), and I hope she knows it goes both ways!

Anyway, I am back to working full time, and hoping to be back to riding the Tony beast soon. He's perfectly happy just hanging out on pasture all day, but I sure miss riding!

All I've done with the beast in the past two weeks