A fall to remember

My life has been a mish-mash of several lines of work but farming has shown up in various forms since the first horse arrived on our farm in 1964. I learned early that the one who purchased the animals did not always want the care of them. That could be done by "the little woman".

Fast forward to 1979.  We were managing a big farm for an owner who really only wanted a tax dodge.  We had started out with a thirty-five cow milking herd and in two years had been forced to sell all but eight cows because there was too much income.  We bought eight cows from the owner. No more milking in the parlour with a pipeline. Now we housed the cows and their offspring in the back barn. The milk was separated and sold to the creamery. Not happy with the present setup but not willing to give up the idea of farming, my husband became less and less interested in getting up and going to the barn in the morning. So, it became the norm for me to go alone because I liked to 'get it done'.

On the morning that I am telling about, I had milked the eight cows with the portable milker, had separated the milk and had been up to the wash-up area next to the parlour to clean the equipment. I had climbed the wooden ladder up to the haymow above this 80 foot long barn to put down hay for the cows, the heifers and the bob calves. I was done. Then I decided that the hay that the bob calves ( just a name used for very young calves) was not as fine as I would have liked so I hauled the ladder up and stood it against the mow opening. It was a sturdy ladder made with a 2x4  timber frame.

I climbed up to the next-to-last last step and as I made the move to step off, the ladder went out from under me. It is amazing what a person thinks of in a matter of seconds. I knew I was going down, backward. I knew I was going to land on that sturdy ladder. I knew I needed to hold my head up to avoid crashing onto cement. I didn't expect the "woosh" of air that erupted from me as I hit.

I came to laying on my belly on the mow floor, my arms crossed in front of me. I was looking down at my body splayed out atop the ladder, on the floor. One arm was flung to the side, my legs splayed out. I seemed indifferent to the situation and had no pain. Then I regained consciousness on the floor.

Now, the reality of my situation began to reveal itself. I tried to get up---no deal. Just nausea.  My chest felt weird, like it was getting bigger. I muttered 'help' but I knew that nobody was going to hear me. I decided I must get up. I drew my legs up, one at a time and they worked. The arm that I had 'seen' splayed out seemed to be useless.  I managed to roll myself onto that useless side and with the help of the concrete manger front, got to my feet. Despite being upright I was far from 'home free'.

Once I was on my feet, I made my way to the double door leading to the tack room which opened to the main loafing barn. This barn was 100 feet long. I went through 2 small gates that kept animals from the walkway. Having gone through 4 gates/doors now, my 'farmer's brain kicked in. A gate opened is a gate to close. So I turned around, retraced my steps and this time I closed everything. I mention this only because in hindsight, it didn't really matter.

At the end of this walkway was the heavy, slanted door that allowed cows into the milking parlour. It proved to be almost heavier than I could manage but I did. Lad, the Labrador, was there to greet me and I thought that he would take care of me on the homeward journey. Ha ! He just skipped off home when I opened the door to the outside. The barn door was no more than 10 feet from the fairly heavily travelled concession road. Maybe someone would come along.  I looked up the hill. My journey was going to be all uphill!

 I must have been a sight to behold. I plodded onward, holding my left arm sort of above my head, bile was bubbling from my mouth and rolling down the front of my jacket.  I made it past the big red barn, the owner's mansion on the left, the big drive shed on the right and finally the two houses built originally to house farm workers and now just rentals.  In total my whole trip home was likely close to 1/2 kilometer. Not one car went past me. 

I had become very verbal as I walked and by the time I turned down our drive, I was moaning loudly. the neighbor across the fence from us was an ambulance driver locally. He heard me coming, looked out and then called for transport. I stumbled into our back porch and Don had also heard me coming. He opened the door and said, "What the f--- did you do now?" I replied "Just call me an ambulance and when I get home from the hospital, I'm leaving you." I wanted to change my clothes but that proved more than he could do so Allyson, then three helped me to get my jeans off and put on a clean pair. The ambulance arrived and away we went to Newmarket about twenty minutes away.

Once I was in the ER, everything seemed to happen very quickly. I was sent to have a chest xray done. The nurses wanted me to stand in front of the machine but my legs were no longer dependable and I kept sliding down the face of that machine and they would 'jack me up again''. All the while I continued to barf into a k-basin . Back in the Emerg area, a doctor approached my guerney and got up onto it. He was straddling me, baring my chest and holding a thoracic needle. He said, "This is going to hurt a bit" and plunged that needle in just to the right side of my upper chest. What's one more pain? Then I was connected to a chest pump and prepped to go to the ICU. As they wheeled me through the opening to the waiting room, the nurse asked if anyone was with me. Nope. Don hadn't bothered to come.

That was the last time I was conscious for two days. When I finally came to life again, my aunt from Bramalea was sitting at my bedside. With her was a strange lady. It seems that while I was in LaLaLand, a runaway train had done great damage to Mississauga. My aunt had taken in a family needing temporary housing and I had missed the whole event. 

 The doctor came to explain my injuries. He said that I had pulverized three ribs and broken or cracked all the major ribs on the right side. My lung had been punctured and I had significant bleeding. I had had one transfusion of blood and might require another. I spent seven days in the ICU and then another eight on a med/surg ward.  I developed surgical emphysema which means that the air from my lungs was not being housed in the lung and flowed throughout my body making a crackling sound when I was touched. The student nurses were paraded in to touch me and hear the crackle.  

 I healed, I didn't leave home and I milked cows again. Life goes on.