Roz’s Blog

Mending legs!!! part 2

I am suddenly starting to bore of this whole broken leg thing; the anger has slowly slipped into silent despair. I hate being dependent on people and now I find myself way to dependent on too many people to mention. The big horse is sick and looking after him requires even more time out of the teenagers lives- every one is beginning to get fed up of my continueing unhealed bones. I am a bit of a control master so I guess I want to be there myself looking after him, instead I am miles away and get to visit once a month if I am lucky.Do you ever feel like someone is shitting on you from a great height? It has been,over the last year, one thing after another and there is only so much crap a person can take. Recently, attending church, to please my mother, i was asked by a member of the congregation which church i normally attend, when i said i didnt attend church she looked at me appauled by this revelation. “If there is a god” i say “he is a very cruel one”. I dont just mean myself, i am not that selfish. What challenges us makes us stronger- bollocks i feel i am getting weaker by the hour.

I keep thinking back to that fateful day, its amazing how such a simple thing can change everything. What if I had stuck to my guns and not ridden that day, decided to go into work as I should have done? What if I had forgotton to go back and get my mobile phone? What if I had stayed on the horse instead of jumping would I still be alive and well or crushed to death or worse paralysed? What if? What if? What if? Did I make the right decision in jumping? I will never know and I sure as hell dont want to test it out! Many people asked me after the accident “why did you jump?” like the actions that were so obvious to me seemed ludicrous to every one else. What else was I supposed to do on a clumsy ex harness race horse when we were speeding down hill towards a road?  People comment that I appear to be taking this whole thing in my stride, that I am very brave- rubbish I am neither its all a lie.

The PhD

My PhD is on Peer Mentoring Schemes within Higher Education and is supervised by Dr Vivien Swanson. I am approaching this topic from a health and educational psychology perspective and am due to complete the research in June 2007. Why am i studying this? because research has indicated that student dropout costs the government £90 million every year. More importantly than that is the overwhelming fact that 60% + first year undergraduates report feelings of homesickness, loneliness and psychological distress and many will leave because of it. With a changing university system and the abolishment of personal tutors within many institutions one needs to focus on another area of support: that is other students. Mentoring as a whole has received large amounts of focus as of late and studies have indicated its benefits for both mentor and mentee, yet it is theoryless and under researched. Studies within higher education have been methodoligically flawed. Despite the lack of empirical evidence regarding its benefits it continues to be introduced in its droves. So does it really benefit the student?

Mending legs!!! Part 1

Its amazing in situations such as the one I found myself in how much you actually think, assess, and manage it. Ok so my first thought, when i skidded to a halt in a puddle with a leg that was so obviously broken, was ’shit’ but after that I kicked into coping and survival mode- I even told the emergency services that my tibia and fibula were broken because the two sections of my leg were not fixed at all, i.e. the leg flopped when you lifted it at the point of the break!! I mean who thinks about saying that when they are laying in a field, on their own, in agony, with a phone about to die due to lack of battery? As soon as I had landed it started to rain - typical - I knew I would be heading into shock so curled up as much as possible including moving my leg which was hell. There was a huge temptation to remove the Chap to assess the damage, but I remember reading about it holding the leg together- besides if the break was external the chap would be protecting it from infection. My phone had one bar left of battery so the first person I rang was not 999 but the owner of the yard he would know where I was and could phone the ambulance from his phone, unfortuatley he wasnt there so I rang 999 instead. I cant believe how long you actually have to wait to get through to your ‘chosen emergency service’. My phone was signalling its slow and quiet death while I was shouting at the operator to hurry up! No fuss, no snivelling waffle I simply stated the problem and explained where I was, but they struggled to find me on the map! I decided my parents were the next best bet so I hung up rang the parents to tell them to ring the emergency services and explain in greater detail where the yard was, but only managed to blurt out “I am in a field near the yard, I have broken my leg” when my phone deiced to die. My poor parents what a thing to be left with. They lept straight in the car and headed to the yard ringing the ambulance at the same time. The next 45 minutes were the longest in my life. I had no idea where Alfie was or indeed if he was ok, I was getting wet and cold, I was in agony and I had no idea if I would be found. I was in the worst position possible I could barely see the road even if I sat up, which was agony so I lay there listening. I could hear the sirens coming and then going straight past the entrance road to the yard. 20 minutes later they started driving up and down the road where I was but couldnt find me. I took my hat off and started throwing it up in the air in the hopes they would see it, then there was nothing else left for me to do but to scream in the most chilling, horrifying way. They came so close I could almost hear them talking, but they kept passing the field. Suddenly a combination of my screaming and Alfie stood in the field minus a rider indicated that that was the specific field I would be in. My parents arrived at exactly the same time but it was only when the paramedics were at my side that I allowed myself to feel the real pain. Suddenly and all at once the shock, the cold and the agony hit and I slipped off. I could feel my eyes being forced open and lights flashed in them, I could hear everything they were saying and I could feel the chaps and jodphurs being ripped off leaving the leg to just collapse in a mass of muscle with no structure. I came round in hospital once I had some heat back into me. I lay in resuss for hours, literally. I lay next to a lady having her heart shocked with only a curtain between the two of us and with my x-rays displayed on the board right in front of me! I finally headed for surgery at 9pm when I had been brought in at 11am, and I woke to find I had ’scaffolding’ on my leg- this was to force the Tibia back into position- and discovered a second surgery was scheduled for Sunday and that it would be six months before I would walk again. And so began my long and tiresome trek to recovery.