Chanb77's Weblog

Soo.. this is a non-diving entry of my Dive Journal. I was up at the barn, working with one of the horses that I am training, and I had a bit of a mishap. I had finished working with Jolton, a yearling gelding that I am starting to break, and had pulled out Chocolat. Chocolat is a 2 yr. old Gelding, that stands about 17.1 hh. For those of you that do not know how tall that is, it’s really freakin’ big. His back is taller than my head. He was recently purchased from the RCMP stables by the owners of the farm ~ quite a nice horse, just freakin’ big! So… the poor lad has quite a nasty cut on his right hind leg, and while I was picking out his left hind leg, he thought it might be a good idea to lift the right one too. So… logic says the one in my hand has all his weight on it now, and it fell down, strategically in the “right” spot.

Now.. I’ve broken a bunch of toes before, but never has one hurt like this one. I honestly wondered if he had severed my big toe of my left foot. I tried walking it off a little, so that my eyes didn’t feel like they were in the back of my head, but it wasn’t easing any. Ok… I was finished for the night anyway… I put Chocolate back into his “house,” and went to the farm owner’s door. No answer.. ok.. I have to get home… Home is about a 35 minute drive from the farm.

I drive standard … left foot… clutch… excrutiating pain… I have to admit that I actually cried. I didn’t even cry when I broke my back for cryin’ out loud…

So.. I get home after what seemed like an eternity, and had called Steve ahead, to mash up some ice. My toe was already purple and pretty big. The next morning, I got up, went to work, and tried to tough it out. Lucky for me, the van is not standard, so I was able to drive that to work, while Steve took my car.

The swelling was now moving up my leg, and my ankle had disappeared. I am a little stubborn (pffttt… ), and did not think I needed to go get it checked. For the amount of body parts that I’ve injured from my career training horses, I felt silly about a toe.

A few of my friends finally talked me into going to the clinic. Soo.. after the x rays, they saw (and showed me) that there is a crack/fracture all the way across my big toe, above the first knuckle. The pressure was so bad, that the swelling was going up my leg. They had to burn 3 holes in my nail to release the pressure, as well as all the blood.

So.. now I sit, sulking that I cannot dive… all because of my toe. It really is a very nice mixture of black and purple though! 

I did take a pic, but it isn’t pretty. Soo.. I will have to live vicariously through my fellow diving friends for the next little while. … *sniff sniff*