Surviving

SURVIVING

       The rain was pounding the roof, the cold was biting at my nose, and the wind howled through the ring.  I was riding Zoey that day. Remmie had gotten a limp during our training and I knew I shouldn’t have been riding Zoey.  She was still too young, too inexperienced.  Her rough stride messily carried me over the jumps while knocking down half of the poles.  She got over all the jumps save one.  That fateful, vicious jump.  The red and white striped jumping poles supported by tall standards covered in decorative bushes.  It was a very normal jump, yet she refused the jump as if it were some horrid monster ready to bite her leg if she went near it.  The sudden stop threw me over her as if I weighed nothing.  In that second of weightlessness, I realized I was not going to clear the poles of the jump.  Terror shot through my every vein.  I twisted in a feeble attempt to protect my back, but it was too late.  Crack.  Snap.  The sound of crushed bones.  A flare of pain.  Then nothing.  Lying on the woodchip ground, I felt nothing.  I was trapped with my thoughts.  How could this happen to me?  Riding is my life. It can’t be taken away!  I moved to get up, but strong hands of the people now surrounding me held me down.  They yelled words at others and at me that I couldn’t hear.  I must ride! This cannot stop me!  My instincts overrode my common sense and I made another attempt to get up. Something was wrong; no parts of my body were responding. I will ride again; I will make it, I repeated to myself over and over as I faded into infinite darkness with the faint taste of blood lingering in my mouth.
       I woke up a week later to a splitting headache, machines and metal things all around and in me.  The sickly green of the walls hurts my sensitive eyes.  There is something stuffed up nose.  I reach to pull it out but I’m stopped by an extreme pain when I bend my arm. A needle. I am comfortless and alone.  Why is there no one here?  I crave answers to these strange things and all my questions; but no one is here.  I see a nurse walk past my door and she looks at me through the window with mousey eyes void of any emotion or thought.  She turns on her heel and walks briskly away only to return a few moments later with a rather large man - presumably my doctor.  
       He comes in and introduces himself as Doctor Cook.  He smells clean.  Too clean. This whole place smells too clean.  He asks me questions which I don’t feel like answering.  How are you?  Silence; only broken by the constant beep of the machine diligently watching my heart rate. I don’t know the answer to his question. What day is it?  I don’t care.  What’s your name?  You’re my doctor and you don’t know my name?  Idiot.  I want out of here. I want to ride.  I stare back at him with a blank look and quietly ask what’s wrong with me?  Why do I have things jabbed into my skin?  He explains everything to me in a slow manner which one would use with people who don’t speak English very well, which is extremely annoying to anyone who understands it perfectly.  Dr. Cook explains to me that when my back connected with the jump, it shattered three vertebrae in my lower back.  They still aren’t able to determine if I will be paralyzed or not because the x-rays can’t see to my spinal cord through all the pieces of broken bone.  You could be paralyzed from the waist down for life, he calmly informs me.  You will be lucky to walk again, and you definitely won’t ever be riding again.  What?  Not possible.  I attempted to wiggle my toe. It didn’t move.  Move!!! I screamed out loud at my toe as tears of anger and frustration streamed down my cheeks.  You also lost half your blood, he states as I grit my teeth.  GET OUT!  I yell as loud as I can at the man.  He didn’t leave.  He said something about that I shouldn’t have survived.  I should be dead?
       The last thing this Bearer of Bad News had to say to me was that I was to stay in bed for at least six months. SIX MONTHS!  How am I going to be able to ride when I’m sentenced for life to this god forsaken bed!  I vaguely remember him saying something about letting my vertebrae set and heal well.  He then left me to my thoughts.  With him gone, I set to work getting that toe to move.  I tried for uncountable hours everyday.
        I got movement in my feet back two months later. Dr. Cook had said, pieces of crushed vertebrae had started to heal and released some of the pressure on my spinal cord.  It was a miracle he proclaimed.  Maybe I will walk again. Maybe even ride!  
After six months, I could bring my knees up and slowly move my legs around.  People said I was making a remarkable recovery.  I said it wasn’t remarkable until I am able to ride again.  I got disapproving looks from my doctor for that remark.  Near the end of seven months, I was finally released from my bed prison in that hospital; to begin my lengthy rehabilitation to learn to walk again.  I had lost all my leg muscles from not walking for almost eight months.  I’m stuck in a shell that will barely respond to me.  I want to run, ride, swim.  But it isn’t possible.  I’m constrained, and fear the possibility of being paralyzed is going to be present for the rest of my life.
        My rehab consisted of leg strengthening exercises on machines that clink and clang, going up and down flights of stairs that to me seem like Mount Everest, and regular walks.  There was never any running, for that might jar my tender bones.  No horseback riding, for I might slip a disk.  No jumping, for that might crush those vertebrae. But, after all the pain staking five months of rehab, I sat on a horse for the first time.  Tears fill my eyes again as my horse Remmie and I walk around the riding ring;  the sun shining in my eyes and its energy filling me with warmth even though it is a cold day.  I’ve done the impossible.  It seems he knows the pain I’ve gone through up to this moment and he treats me with the utmost care.  He never missed a step, never startled, never makes me doubt my trust in him.  I am finally reunited with my best friend in the way that I had needed for over a year now.
        It took another three months for the doctors to allow me to do more then just walk on my Remmie.  At first, I was only allowed to trot.  A month after that, I was allowed to do anything on a horse that I could do before the accident, on the condition that I was not to push myself too hard.  Instantly, I was at the stables, setting up smaller jumps and working Remmie and I back into shape.  Whenever I was able to get to the stables, my riding coach also worked with us non-stop.  I would be entering the same competition that had crippled me for almost a year, so there was much work to be done.  I had to relearn almost everything, although it was much easier this time around since Remmie knew what he was doing.  Jumping, lead changes, gating, and flatwork were my regular practice routine and it was hard.  Very hard.  But I was riding again. Difficulty had no matter because I was riding and I was going to compete again in two months.
        Hoof beats, slamming the ground like my heart against my ribcage, snap me back to reality.  The sun is gleaming off of Remmie’s silky coat and I can feel a warm breeze on my cheeks, but it is not comforting to me today. Remmie’s smooth canter tries to force me into a false sense of security while my stomach fights with swirls and somersaults fueled by adrenaline.  I see that jump.  That fateful, vicious jump.  Then silence.  Fear dulling everything around me; no sounds, no adrenaline, nothing.  I feel the sweat beading on my forehead.  I hear my breath quicken. My heart races.  Panic grips me.  The only thing I still register is the powerful reassurance rippling through Remmie’s muscles as he rounds the corner to that jump.  I feel him shift with unease under me as he senses my fear, but he charges forward.  He is determined to get me over that jump.  You aren’t supposed to close your eyes when you go over a jump on a horse. But I did.  Remmie made it.  He soared over it as if nothing had ever happened here.  I trusted Remmie to bring me over it, even through my terror.  Sounds come screaming back at me as I hear the cheers of the audience, my friends and family.  I faintly hear the commentator say that I’ve been awarded second place in the Hunter Jumper category.  
        My friends and family stand beside Remmie and me as we wait to be called up for my silver trophy.  However, the girl who beat me by only two points asks the judge to please listen to her and to not award me second place.  She wishes to have second.  Her name is Andrea.  The judges say they cannot do that since they don’t have a valid reason.  She does the most heartfelt thing anyone has done for me since my accident; she disqualifies herself in order for me to have first place.  Andrea says I deserve it more then anyone in this ring because I have survived what no person should ever have to go through or even be able to survive.  We exchange smiles and nods of our heads as I walk Remmie to his stall, trophy in hand that reads, “I will survive”.  I will survive, I whisper to myself as Remmie nudges me with his velvety nose in approval.