April 28 started out like any other morning. I woke up at 6am and Reba and I headed out to a friends' barn. Reba to run with their dogs prior to bein in the kennel for the day, and me to work with a horse I had been working with for the last seven months, five days a week. The ride was goning well until all of a sudden the horse spooked, bucking me off and trampling me. Once I gathered my wits I got my phone out to call for help. Unfortunately the sim card had been knocked loose and it wasn't getting any service. Gasping for breath I gave myself a pep talk to try and muster the means to crawl towards the house.
Luckily for me, the owner of the horse woke up and saw the rest of the horses acting strangely, then she saw the saddled horse without a rider. She raced out of the house she & her husband found me and called 911.
Once at the hospital they discovered I had four broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a blood clot in my lung, and level four lacerations in my liver. They pumped me full of gel via my femoral arteries to stop the internal bleeding. I then had two chest tubes, an according drain and four jp drains to help get the liquid out of my chest cavity and away from my liver. My bile duct was draining in the wrong direction making eating imposible so a stint had to be put in. As I was healing my liver developed an abscess so 22 staples later they took out my liver, removed the diseased pieces, about 25%, and put it back in my body. That was on May 14th.
After recovering from that surgery they saw hematomas & scar tissue on my right lung so they needed to go back in again. They removed as much of the hematoma & scar tissue as possible in addition to further cleaning the lung by unsticking it from my rib cage. The resulting 3" incision was far more uncomfortable than the 7" one from my belly button to my sternum.
Working down pain medication and taking a shower were my final hurdle before I was able to leave the hospital. Let me tell you, after 38 days of only baby wipe "baths" I was more then happy for a real shower. Amazing what you don't think about when you are completely focused on healing.
Two ICU stints, multiple surgeries and 38 days later I'm happy to say I'm recovering at home. I still have the accordian drain in and about another two months of recovery ahead of me. Simple things I took for granted on April 27, are not so simple now.
Since returning home on June 1, I have had to stay 10 additional nights in the hospital to deal with multiple issues for my clogged drain near my liver.
I wouldn't be as healed as I am now without the ever vigilant support of Dave, my mom and friends being at my bedside every day, not to mention the constant prayers from everyone else, the Trama team at Peace health, the nurses and CNAs.
Partly due to covid I luckily had a large amount of vacation hours that carried me through my hospital stay. The generous staff at Nicky USA have donated over 160 hours of PTO to help get me that much closer to narrowing the gap of having to miss nearly 90 days of work. Additionally I'm lucky to have insurance with a relatively low maximum out of pocket. Dave was also unable to work during my hospital stay, but has now returned.
Any support to help ease the financial strain we are having while I am still recovering at home would be greatly appreciated to help pay down hospital costs and home bills. Again, thank you all so much for the continued support and well wishes. I hope to be back to my usual stubborn self soon and will be able to see more of you in person.
Thank you,
Bree, Dave, Macie, Reba, & Picosa
