I was swedenbound yet another time before Christmas and as soon as I left Mallorca things started to go wrong.

Literally as soon as the Vueling lifted its aluminum wings and we took to the skies in Barcelona, Lucky got into a gas related colic problem and the vets were called out.

Landing in Stockholm, as I was traveling in company I was enjoying quiet wheelchair drivers! They don’t sing badly in able bodied peoples presence! Probably because of the fear of what they know an abled bodied person could do to them. As we arrived at our hotel I got the first phonecall about Lucky’s colic. We tried to arrange everything and thanks to a great team with great grooms, vets and transporters we got her to the clinic for the evening as she hadn’t picked up during the afternoon.

The next phone call was of Skype variety to talk to our girls and at the time they were all still cheery. Mel was a little tired and missing us but otherwise fine. We told our good nights and headed out for dinner with the most fabulous person in this world, my grand mother India!

India, or Farmor as I call her, is 94 years old and I was lucky enough to get a date with her after her Italian lesson! She is a Wonder Woman! During dinner I get confirmation that Lucky had to get in to surgery.

The night walk back to the hotel was chilly. A wind coming so strong head on. Almost in any direction you turned. The wind was a messenger and it had bad news to give and there was nowhere I could hide from it.

Lucky died when the vets tried to save her. The colon had already teared and she was put to sleep as there was no other option. I think I am still in shock about it all and it probably won’t sink in until I see her stable.

The next day the wind kept bringing us bad news. Our 3 children that have (knock on wood) been healthy this fall went to school in the morning. After about 1 hour in school, the headmaster of Happy Faces called me up. “Oh hello Emelie, nothing to worry about but….”
It turns out it’s Millie, and she has conjunctivitis. Trying to get hold of someone in Mallorca to go and pick up Millie turned out to be a special task.

Just keep bringing us all the bad luck won’t you?

In the evening we went to “Ryttar Galan” a yearly event in Sweden for the horse community! We were sat at the H&M table and Dan got Malin Bayard sitting right next to him. I could tell the tale about my unfortunate last year for other horse lovers around our table. It was a brilliant evening and a first time for me to see and talk to a lot of my old buddies!

Sweden calmed down over the next couple of days as we drove around planning next years Vätternrundan. Dan has 40 spaces for clients of his next year.

I had almost forgotten about how tired I can get until we flew back to Mallorca again. After the plane landed in Barcelona my energy had gone down into the minus. 2 more degrading wheelchair runs before I at last sat in Scarlet the car. Dan had somewhere managed to find and consume nearly 1kg of chocolate! Man can he talk for England when he has a sugar rush!

On Sunday it’s 1st of advent and Dan is starting a new non-sweety non-biscuity pre-Christmas. He has 2 days to go before he starts so he has the intent to really go for it!

Millie had more temperature when we landed in Mallorca. I was finally home and at least with a husband high on sugar that proved to be yet another great use for that sweet energy, as I don’t have any.

Keep Smiling 🙂 We will miss you Lucky you were one in a million but I am so thankful and feel blessed to have known you! Rest in peace my love xxx

For months now I have been in a semi exclusion zone of disable-ness, hard for people to see or understand.

Only when I’ve been in hospital or in a wheelchair people could understand my trauma, or at least acting as if they did. Now after 2 weeks Physio therapy I am starting to feel more like me again! The combination with me driving again is full on brilliant!

When it comes to horses, I am beginning to feel a bit more switched on again. It’s true I have not yet come to a decision of what I want to do but I am getting clearer vibes. My energies are starting to sort themselves out.

So winter has arrived here in quite a fashion. Continuous rain for 5 days. Overflowing swimming pools, wet ponies and roof leaks. When it rains in Mallorca it’s got a determination to it. It RAINS! The other night we ordered a Chinese take away for dinner and when the food arrived it was pouring down like someone was emptying out bathtubs of water. The poor delivery boy was on a scooter. The food was delicious and how he even found us in the rain is beyond me. Finding us with hot delicious food really gave him some brownie points. I served him a piping hot coffee and let him stay until whoever was doing the bathtub emptying had grown tired of the wildness of the wet.

My life has started to speed up again. I am not spending any time on the sofa so I am not as updated on all news and sport as I have been in the last couple of months. I know that England have started out well in the Ashes. I know my horse Ayton won the big class in Aintree and other than that not so much. It’s not such a bad thing, not keeping updated. Life is full of surprises all of a sudden.

Today I decided to change my appearance. I have gone from blond to pink to blond to pink to blond and now I am… Well it’s winter now so I am a winter color! And I’ve had a very sharp haircut as well. Basically I allowed the hairdresser to do all decision making and I think it looks alright! I can’t recognize me so neither will you!

Now on my second last day of torture/Physio therapy and they are all amazed at my progress! I can almost straighten out my arm fully. And when Isa(real name)/Dolores(what I call her) is doing her probing I don’t actually mind too much. It has been a rough couple of weeks but now I am almost fully recovered!

My wonderful family have been such support! Although they are maybe not so nice to each other. Mel decided to give Millie a short boy haircut, not leaving a single curly lock for us to enjoy. She did it a day before the yearly school photo will be taken. I wouldn’t have minded so much if she could wear something girly, but for school photo they change all kids in to Happy Face uniforms… She will look like a very pretty boy.

It has happened before. Myrna cut of Mel’s luscious curls, but luckily that time it was 2 days AFTER an important event. Their christening.

Keep smiling 🙂 this activity has shown it clearer than many, you heal through pain and electric shocks!

We can see snow, in the mountains that is! Poor poor horses just clipped for the winter training.

Travel back from Sweden via Denmark and Austria to end up in Mallorca went well! I am put on mobility service around all the airports and thank god for that! I think average plane travelers must walk close to half marathons, just to get to their flight… If they have connecting flights good luck to them! I have never before seen what distances there are but I am amazed now that distance matters so much!

Another thing I have noticed on my travels is that anyone driving a wheelchair is prone to sing along. It really gets a little annoying after getting sung to by 6 different mobility care centre people. No one was in tune. No one sang a song I could sing along with and out of the 6, I would say only one was bearable to listen to. Ok I see where they come from, caring people that want to entertain their “patients”. Although the very opposite might happen. They should be taught this in care school as somewhere someone will pass out or die due to a carer singing falsely to a Rikki Martin song!

Also it’s clear a lot of care takers on airports clearly have not passed a driving test! The amounts of pillars just missed and steps grazed added a bit of excitement to my journey!

I’m back home now! It’s so wonderful! We were supposed to go camping this weekend! In the mountains… Well there is snow up there now! So camping will be slightly changed and we are country buffing it instead… We will BBQ and grill marsh mallows and by the end of it we might put up a tent or two in the garden. Well it’s as close to camping as I think this weather allows!

I am yet again finding me in Physio. Today they really went for it with massaging and stretching. I think someone might have read this and return the favor by torturing me now! Never mind a bit of torture will only make me stronger! Then after the pulling on the joints they put me in the magnet pipe and give me some more shocks. I will become super woman after this! I wonder what my kryptonite will be?

One more week of Physio and then I will need the green light from my doctor to start back riding. I am now slightly getting past The Crash Reel experience. I almost emailed Kevin Pearce to tell him what bother the movie had made for me. Then half of me goes back in to blank mode. The mode where I feel rather excluded from my life. Now the pain from electric shocks are bringing me back to life. And any thoughts of emailing a poor ex snowboarder slowly leaves me.

Keep Smiling 🙂 there will be small wonders to discover and learn from, even in the smallest space!

My life has become a series. I follow it rather than actually live it. I feel somewhat removed from what should be my actual life. It’s like I am no longer taking part in this difficult and hateful journey.

It’s a blessing you might say. To feel removed from all the ache and troubles. Somehow to not feel responsible for all that has happened. A mere bystander and a passer by, rubbernecking the hell out of my life…. or so called life.

I had heard about the documentary The Crash Reel. Superstar snowboarder Kevin Pearce’s accident that forced him to stop competing 2010. He crashed in a half pipe practicing new tricks, otherwise his injuries were very similar to mine. The TBI was almost in the same place. He was in hospital a month longer than me. But I felt he and I had gone through a very similar thing. I was looking forward to see how he was getting back snowboarding as I felt his passion was as strong as mine.

The short clips before the documentary was shown clearly showed how determined he was and how quickly he should be back on the slopes… or so I thought.

It turned out that everybody in his family wanted him to stop skiing. This documentary was not a glowing beam showing sport people that have suffered TBI that you can make a comeback after even a serious fall like that. It was instead a stop sign. Trying to level and remove any bit of hope that one might have to come back in the sport one day.

I watched it to find some inspiration in my half lived life and it left me feeling totally lost. Since then I have disconnected with Life Of Me.

At the moment I find myself in Sweden. In the next couple of days I will see the horses I have here and also watch the final of the VW Grand Prix in Flyinge. I will have these days to ponder and just give myself some time to think about what is important.

Most of you I guess a mere 97.5-98% of you would probably put me at quitting the horses. I can tell you this is possibly the one thing my family agrees on. Although the accidents, both of them were, even though horses were involved, not your average horse accidents.

I could of course keep on defending the sport and the animals involved. I would love to know what made the first accident happen but I am not someone who dwells on the past. What has happened has happened. There is no way of un-happening it, but I would sure like to know why the first accident happened. I don’t think it would be a great decider on my final decision of where or when to re-kindle (?) my life.

I do not want you worriers out there worry that I am depressed. I am far from it. I am more focused now than I have been for some time.

Keep Smiling 😉 life sometimes throws you a curved ball, an annoying fly that won’t stop bothering your horse or a half pipe not cut out for you. Now is the time to figure out what to do with it.

Well Amy Winehouse wrote a song about it and here I am.

Ok for a totally different reason to Amy, but anyway. I can sort of feel what she felt as this rehab business is totally average.

I get put into a magnetic tube, I have electro magnetic wires shocking my elbow and knee and although it’s not overly painful, there are thousand things I’d rather do than this.

Bandages and cast was all permanently removed on Monday! The urge to scratch was beyond me. And how heavenly to feel! Even though some of the feelings involve pain, I so much prefer it to the senseless half that used to fill my left side!

I am now at rehab and I thought it would involve someone actually touching me (all in appropriate ways) there is nothing further from this treatment! They have not. Vassessed ability to move, stretch reach, strength. It’s as far away from the neuro rehab I had in Switzerland. Basically you need to bring something to do to not get bored to death!

The first days without plaster have been quite strange. The freedom of being able to move and without anything restricting my movement. On the other hand, not actually being able to move because my muscles have tied up after 6 weeks constraint. So that’s why I’m here I guess.

I have 10 days of this and then I am declared… Free I guess?

At least I can now teach without plasters I can move around arena and change poles (a little bit) and basically pester my clients a little bit more! They love it!

Something has happened to my memory! I don’t actually mind, it’s almost a bit of a blessing. I can now for the first time in my life see a program on TV that I have already seen, and not remember the plot! It’s great when you run out of things to watch. Both NCIS Los Angeles and Blue Bloods are finding their way back.

Now I am being shocked by electric current. I am not sure what it should do to me. It’s unpleasant and boring. As I have now been told off for using my phone. I can use the phone on an off-air mode. Flight mode, ah well for next time I’ll remember and bring some headphones and video. Might even borrow Dans iPad!

The last 6 weeks have been ok. Even though sitting on sofa really doesn’t suit me. It’s only been the last two weeks where I have pitied myself a little. I try not to let it show. But my choice of food betrays me! Now on a diet I never though I would have. I only have 3 meals/day the snacking could only be good if you do any kind of exercise, my walking up a set of stairs 4 times in a whole day hardly can be seen as exercise!

I try and cook all food. Not using any sauces or pre cooked things to know I only eat what my body thinks is ok.

Next week I am going to Sweden to see two of my horses! It will be such fun to see them both for the first time! So if you are in the south of Sweden you could come to Flyinge and watch some horses jumping on Tuesday and Wednesday (12-13/11)

Keep smiling 🙂 even when you are all wired up and given electric shocks, it’s only for a designated time!

We made it through Halloween. I did the €2.99 outfit and used mostly ripped sheets dyed in black tea and dressed self as mummy. I managed to scare not only my own children but also neighbors, random people I passed whilst getting to party at school, and most people at party. Halloween 2013 = success! I guess I could use the last years struggles and put it into my suffering mummy. She felt real, between the socializing and jolly mummy, was the vindictive, soulless mummy that lied within me, let loose. Maybe she was too easy to reach?

The tradition of Halloween here in Mallorca is a good one. It’s not that each and every person gets into it, but there are plenty of creative contributors for having a gory fest!

I will try to upload some creations.

My tiredness has returned with a vengeance. It started a day I was supposed to lunch with girlfriends at a lovely seaside restaurant.

I was dropped off about 500m from the restaurant and walked there arriving 5min early. The 500m walk totally drained me. I started feeling really light headed and almost fainting. After 30 min legs up lying on a small sofa I felt safe enough to sit through the lunch but not really regaining my full energy. It’s strange how my energy just leaves. Without warning. For no reason.

Since the restaurant incident it has happened 3 more times. I am beginning to feel there should be an explanation. A reason for the energy just to leave as quickly as it leaves. And I also think whatever makes my energy leave now also happened before the first accident.

My mother is sure it’s my blood sugar, but it has happened after I have eaten lunch. Like today. At a children’s party. After lunch and snacks plus a small piece of cake I got the light headed ness once more. I managed to get round until the finish due to quite sneeky tricks played on my part. Letting my kids run ahead and cutting lines where I could, not walking a meter longer than I had to.

I have been home for close to 2 hours now and I have managed to sit on the sofa. Only moving thumb to write this and arm to pick up cup of tea in front if me. And finally I can feel some energy returning. Slowly but surely.

In another 4 days all my casts of my left side will be taken off! There will be another X-ray and then the doctor will decide what will happen.

Keep Smiling 🙂 every day you finish, you are getting closer!