2 weeks 3 days.......

My first entry is on my 17th day of wearing my Halo Brace and so far.... it has its complications....

A bit of background first.
I acquired my Halo brace though a riding accident on Tuesday 9th August 2011. I was out doing some cross country jump training with my Friend Becky and Event Trainer Neil.... We where about 6 fences in when my young man (Cooper, 5 year old Dutch Warm blood) saw another horse ( I think..) in the distance and decided to forget all we knew about jumping and just jumped blindly at a small fence ( only about 90cm!) he manged to fall though it and I flopped out the front door. My last memory is of seeing his nose level with my eyes and having the thought that "oh I appear to be falling off". Rumour has it that I hit the ground and bounced quiet well.... causing 2 broken ribs and a small clasped of the lung.  Unfortunately the bad bit happened as Cooper was trying to get his footing back, he caught me between the eyes, splitting open the skin and hyper extending my neck causing a fracture of the C7 & C2 Vertebra.

I should mention at this point that all in, I've had a bit of experience riding, I've raced over point to point fences (Steeplechase type stuff) and done lots of hunting and many years show jumping, so I have an idea what I'm doing. This was simply one of those things, I done much more dangerous jumps on a horse, this time it was bad timing.... maybe I'm paying for all my sins in one go...... maybe I had a guardian angel keeping a half an eye on me and I should be thanking my lucky stars that it wasn't as bad it was millimeters away from being.

Luckily Neil knew exactly what to do and an ambulance appeared pretty fast. I vaguely recall Becky asking me to stay still (I thought I had broken my collar bone!) and heard Neil on the phone calling an ambulance, it crossed my mind that I would be fine once I got my breath back.... I was a little wrong. I was strapped to a board and shipped to hospital. Thankfully Neil was able to take the horses home and Becky followed me to hospital and I still have no idea how I managed to remember my husbands phone number for her to call him.

I don't know when it dawned on my that it was serious this time. probably around the time I let them cut my beloved Ariat boots off! I remember not really being there and flashing in and out. I remember the doctor saying post Xray, "now, thats not what we wanted to see" they then started squeezing my toes every few minutes.

After about 10 hours in A&E (waiting for the Riots in Manchester to calm down!) I was transferred to the special care spinal unit at Hope Hospital, Salford and my Halo Brace was fitted.