Life...........and a Level One Trauma........the Details Part 5

Part 1

We decided to wait with Lindsay until they transferred her to the Intensive Care Unit. We would go with her so we knew how to find her again. (That place was like a maze, I swear.) It was during this time that Lindsay began to talk...........just a little.

The first thing she said was that her eye felt like there was a piece of sand in it. This was at around 10:30 and this whole thing had started at 6. That's a long time to have something irritating and not talking about it.

When the doctor came back in I asked if maybe she could get her eye flushed out. She opened up Lindsay's eye exposing a large piece of debris in the one corner so she ordered the flush and an examine to be sure there was no damage to the eye.

At first Lindsay wasn't very happy about the prospect of getting liquid squirted into her eye and let me tell you that kid can be difficult to deal with if she decided not to co-operate. I'm not sure if the saline solution actually hurt or if it was Lindsay just reacting to the cold.

I looked at the amount of liquid the doctor had ordered to be used and thought it was probably over kill. But then I couldn't believe it when the nurse began to flush that eye. So much dirt and crud came out of it. With each new syringeful of water there was more stuff. I swear there was more dirt in her eye than what I could see in her ear. No wonder that eye was all red and irritated.

Once the eye was free of junk, Lindsay began complaining about the machine taking her blood pressure. I had noticed all through the evening that sometimes she was acting like she was in pain but had been unable to pinpoint the source of it until now.

I asked Lindsay what about the blood pressure cuff could be hurting her. Her response was each time it tightened she felt a sharp shooting pain in her arm. I pulled back the blankets to see the cuff was resting right against the IV port. Each time that cuff tightened it was pushing on that needle. No wonder Lindsay was wincing in pain.

I use these examples to show how out of it Lindsay had been. Even though she was in considerable discomfort she had been unable to communicate the problem. While I'd seen that she was in pain, I couldn't figure the source out without her help. It was a relief to know what was causing the problems and to get them fixed even if it had taken four hours or more.

By the time they did get everything ready to transfer Lindsay to intensive care, she also had remembered that she had been trying to lead Bey Aana through the gate when Heiress had rushed up from behind. Heiress had pushed past Aana rushing the gate. That's all that Lindsay can remember. The rest is what we put together.

So for Lady of Chaos, we figure that Lindsay must have been right on the gate's threshold when Heiress bumped into her throwing her directly into the fence post. She struck the post squarely with the left side of her face and the force rolled her around and flat out onto her face where she landed parallel to the fence. The impact of the fence post is what knocked Lindsay unconscious.

Heiress must have headed straight to her stall and her dinner while Aana followed to see Lindsay on the ground. The mare could sense that something was wrong so she stood watch over Lindsay until Dave came and found them.

That night in the emergency room it looked like Lindsay was going to have a black eye from the impact but it turned out that irritation of her eye was nothing but dirt. By the next morning all the redness was gone. Her check was still red but didn't show any signs of bruising until today.

Lindsay spent a day and a half in the intensive care unit and then another 24 hours in the hospital. She still has trouble with double vision, headaches, dizziness and such and sleeps most of the time. But each day she is a little bit better. We have the allergy problem under control now that I've included antihistamines with all the other meds and keep reminding her of when to take more.

Even through all of this Lindsay was thinking of me. Yesterday morning she came up to me and said "Mommy, I don't know how you live with double vision. It is so hard seeing like this....." Then she gave me a big hug. She's a pretty special kid.

My guess is that her recovery is going to take several weeks. Once that is done we have one more thing to deal with. The CAT scan found a small lump on Lindsay's left lung. I'll let you know how that turns out.



As a post script I found out that when haltering the mare,Heiress had been giving Lindsay some trouble for a few weeks. Instead of asking for help, Lindsay had found her own solution....... she had not been haltering the mare and letting her run into the barn on her own. That had set this whole thing up. So while Heiress was the culprit she was doing something she's been allowed to do.

We also found out that the doctors telling us Lindsay didn't need to wear a helmet on the ground with the horses is not accurate. There was more bruising to her brain than her face. That clearly speaks to her brain needs to be protected. We've also decided to put Lindsay in body armour. We may not be able to keep her from the horses (nor would we try) but we can be sure that she is safe.

The picture is Andy and Dave sometime last summer.......Andy's leg isn't doing well with all this stuff with Lindsay. I am trying to find some place local to get Manuka honey as recommended by Lady of Chaos. I hope it's not too late.

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