@revjohn
It sounds like you have had some tough times!
Not going to lie. There have been days when walking into the ocean and seeing if I could learn to breathe the saltwater seemed like a saner agenda.
I may or may not be on my way out of that murky valley. Maybe it is just a reprieve.
And I am not alone. I am blessed to have some truly amazing friends who are colleagues and we can lament some of the process stuff together. So much requiring a delicate hand fumbled by some bizarrely clumsy leadership meant more pieces shattered than I could collect and tend to. Some of it was just incredibly rotten timing.
It reminds me of an accident I had on my settlement charge.
At the time we had three young kids and a large yard overrun by Alders. Working in my favour is the fact that topsoil in NL is very shallow and Alders do not root deeply. A sturdy prybar and they rip right out.
Didn't have a prybar at the time so I was just bruting them out tree by tree. Set myself a goal for 5-10 per day and worked on them when weather permitted. Just had the one puppy at the time and he was happy to nose around. It became obvious that the yard had been neglected and we started to notice the remains of a picket fence that probably was meant to protect the garden. From what I'm not sure the biggest threat to the garden was a Moose and the fence wasn't big enough to deter one.
At any rate I am shouldering an alder out of the earth and it is resisting. Till suddenly it is not. I lose my balance and fall to my knees and that is when I feel something wrong. In my right knee I am getting signals it has never sent before. So I am careful not to move it much and to explore what my predicament is. I call out to Kimberly and let her know I have a problem. She and the kids come over and I warn the kids to stay back.
I've already discovered that I have fallen on a rotten piece of fencing and have come to the conclusion that I have impaled my knee on an old nail.
I let Kimberly in on that bit of news and she is shouting appropriate first aid reminders at me. I stop her and remind her I have the same first aid certifications she does so I know what I have to do. This is going to be a trip to emerg. I'm going in the back of the van since I have a fence board nailed to my knee. We are not calling for an ambulance it isn't that bad and there is not any blood that we can see so it is just about getting me to my feet and supporting me hobbling with my fenced knee to the van. When we get to emerg we will let them take charge so, Kimberly comes over to help me stand and in so doing steps on the fence board and wrenches is fairly cleanly out of my knee.
All the knowledge on what should be done is undone by clumsy application.
At any rate now it is a solo drive to the hospital. Kids and puppy are okay with that. Kimberly is apologizing profusely. I'd be laughing if I knew that the rusty nail had been pulled cleanly out of my knee.
Tetanus shot later and after making sure the only thing in my knee was stuff that was supposed to be there I was free to go home.
It is a funny story we laughed at later in the evening. It is a funny story we share from time to time. In the moment it stung and may have been a bit more concerning. I survived and I don't even notice the scar.
I survived this last escapade. Not finding it funny haha yet. Still shaking my head. It broke so many other hearts and that has been tougher to swallow and harder to live with.
