Why am I blogging at one in the morning?

This has been one hell of a day.

I've just made it home from spending four hours in the ER with my bride. She had a minor horse wreck this evening.

I say minor now, but at the time I wasn't so sure. I thought she had a broken arm along with some broken ribs and a concussion. She probably would've had the concussion if she were not wearing a helmet.

She is pretty much a solid bruise from the waist up, but her worst injury is a broken thumb. That is actually a lot worse than it sounds because of her line of work.

Funny, the last thing I said to her as she rode off was "Be careful."

The timing was actually pretty good... ten more minutes and I would've been baling hay and would not have heard her cries for help and quite possibly missed seeing the horse running away as well.

I fixed the latches on the baler and was bolting everything back up when I heard an odd noise. It didn't register at first, I thought it was one of the barn cats howling at something. I walked over to my truck for a wrench and saw Ben (the horse she'd been riding) heading for the barn at a dead run. I ran to the gate and closed it and jumped into my truck and took off looking for her.

She was waaaaay over on the back side, where I haven't bushogged yet (where she had no business being) and I couldn't find her at first. I heard her yell again and found her lying flat on her back in the tall grass. She howled when I touched her, so I was ready to call an ambulance.

Then she got up.

On her own without an assistance from me.

I felt a little better then. I was afraid she'd broekn her neck. She said she couldn't see, so now I'm thinking she's got a concussion. I led her over to the truck and drove her to the barn.

She made me stop there and get her saddle off the horse (damn saddle is worth more than the idiot horse) and get her purse out of her truck.

Note: she had her little rat-dog with her and did not want to wait long enough for me to take the dog to the house (or get my wallet for that matter), so we got to the ER with the dog in tow. We've got time to retrieve a saddle, but no time to retrieve a wallet and checkbook and drivers license and so-on...

I will never understand the female mind.

Then the argument starts over which hospital to go to... I'm not even going to get into that.

As we were going up the interstate, she says "I'm going to throw up"

We're in the middle lane beside a semi, so I can't pull off the road, nor can I tell her to hang it out the window...

I had a fairly good sized towel in the truck, so I handed it to her.

Now why would I think that pitiful little towel would help?

She barfed all over my truck.

Finally get to the hospital, I go in to get a wheelchair and some help...

I get a wheelchair, but no help.

I got back out to my truck and try to get her out and into the chair with ten people standing there gawking at my blood and vomit encrusted bride (still wearing her helmet, boots and breeches). I'm trying to hold the dog and get her into the wheelchair when a little old lady steps forward and offered to hold on to the dog for me.

Get her into the building and of course, we have to fill out forms.

They did page someone to come and do triage, but it took them ten minutes to come up there. All the while sweetie is crying and spewing blood all over the place.

I was REAL close to screaming "don't you people have any F-ing nurses here?" and leaving to go to another hospital when I saw a nurse running down the hall towards me.

Did I mention that my truck is sitting outside running and a strange woman is holding our dog and sweetie's purse is in the seat while this is going on?

Got her back to an exam room and a went and moved the truck, which surprisingly enough, was still there, as was sweetie's purse and the little old lady holding my rat-dog. I locked the dog up in the truck (I left the windows open) and starting calling people I knew who lived close by to come get the dog. Naturally, no one was home, so the she spent the evening in the truck. It sounds vile, but I was hoping the damn dog would clean up the barf. No such luck. She'll eat horseshit, but not barf. What the hell good is she then?

I got back in about the time the doctor was finishing his intial exam. He winked and whispered "she'll be ok" as he walked out, which made me breath a bit easier, but he wanted to do a CT and a whole mess of other tests and x-rays out the wazoo, which kept me fairly nervous until her results came back. I was also there in time to hear her tell the nurses NOT to cut her breeches off. Female mind again. If I was hurt, I wouldn't give a damn if I was wearing a Saville Row suit.

I spent most of the evening pacing the floor, going out to check on the dog and trying to find someone to cover a job for sweetie in the morning. I was not able to reach anyone, so I get to get up in about four hours and start calling people again. If I can't find someone to cover for her she's going to be in deep shit.

Well, as Scarlet O'Hara said "Tomorrow is another day."

Maybe it'll be a better one.