Welcome dear 2023! I started writing this blog post some weeks ago when my husband had met up with his Uncle Derek in England. Derek is one of our blog followers! And I think he is our only follower in his 90’s! There had been a request of me writing the blog again, as I hadn’t had any accidents or illnesses for a while, nothing had really been updated on the blog recently.

At the time I was thinking about what I could write about, but when I sat down to write it, my app had disowned me and I couldn’t log on to my blog. Hence now 3 weeks later I write this blog… as a mixture, of the old hardworking me to the newly broken me.

We begin January 2023. We have left Corona virus behind us, the war in Ukraine seams to have lost some of its intensity. It almost seamed easier to breathe there for a second or two… but then came the biggest earthquake to ever shake Turkey and Syria. I thought we would be past the drama and the turmoil of bad energy. In our little bubble life of wines and horses we were getting ready for our first year of bottling over 20.000 bottles of wine!!!

For us this was going to be a big year. We have 3 new wines coming out. Ses Rotes 16 hands range! We will have a red Syrah, a white Sauvignon Blanc that has been in a ceramic tank and a rose 100% Pinot Noir.

The horses have all started the year in a perfect manner. All as a warmup for this years first international show in April in Oliva Nova, Denia, Spanish mainland. We were also looking forward to go to St Anton for a week skiing…

How can I ever start this blog again? Now that the app finally has let me in again… I’ll tell you how. 10 broken bones and a dislocated shoulder should do it for me. Welcome to your newly/again/never ending story broken life Emelie. Oh and the fun you had planned, because one of your lungs is compressed you can forget about that as well…

It was last Sunday. I was competing at the La Gubia riding club in Mallorca. It was a beautiful sunny day (perfect for walking in the mountains) I had jumped the first horse Damion Star, and was already in 4th place on him. My regular horse Unreal that I normally win or get well placed with jumped the 2 first fences awesome, then turning back to the third fence, I can still not understand what spooked him, but halfway over the fence he decides that he shouldn’t jump it.

In mid air, my heart already thrown over the oxer, my body follows my heart and it falls hard onto the arena floor. The intensity of the pain shooting through me was something I have not really experienced before, and as I kind of know pain, I knew this was no laughing matter. There are so many people standing there around me. Taking off my helmet, asking if I’m ok, seeing if they can remove my sunglasses and I can really only hear me.

It’s not a super loud howling, it’s more like a densely compacted hiss of pain, but it’s constant. I cannot talk. I cannot make people understand me. They lift me onto a steel tray carrier, that then is lifted onto the trolley of the ambulance. After many pursuits to fold out said trolleys wheels they somehow manage to get me into ambulance number 1. I am there with 2 female people (I’m not sure if they are nurses or just people helping out at the show), a driver, or a person that don’t drive very legal/a lot/ever driven a manual ambulance, gets behind the wheel, and off we go!

The driver must have been nervous about the time it had taken to remove the remains of me from the arena to his vehicle. That or he was super excited about Formula 1 starting in a couple of weeks. Away we went. I was now strapped onto my trolley on top of the now super uncomfortable steal trap tray that they had lifted me onto said trolley. It was cutting into my previously not so sore bits. The 2 ladies had yet to sit down, and as the driver took off in Formula style and then managed to crash into something just outside the arena. I was strapped in so I didn’t really move but the two ladies went flying, one landing on top of me but did everything to get off me as soon as possible. After a whole lot of shouting and cursing it was decided I should get in a second ambulance as there was something not quite right with the one I was in.

There was some more shifting and lifting of the steel tray I was on and I was strapped onto a new trolley. Still very uncomfortable. Here one of the ladies decides to pull off my jacket. A doctor dressed in all black appears from out of nowhere. He speaks perfect English and he says he thinks my shoulder is dislocated. I can only agree as I have no power in the arm at all. He says it might be the only pain factor for me so should be try and pull it back in?

I can still hardly breathe and there is so much pain around me, so I agree to have the shoulder relocated! I’ve had some other joints dislocated before and the relocation has always been a very easy pulley motion, for sure with pain but still the release of all the pain since popped back in was immediate. The dark doctor grabbed hold of my arm, in a janky pulling motion he tried to get the shoulder back into its socket. He was pulling it sideways, upwards, downwards, up again. And when I thought he had given up he pulled it up to the left, gave it a tug and it popped back into its socket. Some of the pain stilled just a little. But it was still hard to breathe. We drove off in ambulance number 2. The 250 meter cross country road down from the parking to the actual road nearly was the end of me. Massive holes in the road that somehow got even bigger when strapped onto a tray, strapped onto a trolley, in an ambulance.

We were taken to a new hospital to me… well it’s the hospital that we are insured with with our riding licenses , Palma Planes. Here I almost came to my third death of the day. I was in the ambulance, coming onto the hospital area. There are some evil speed bumps from hell. I’m not sure who ever ordered or designed them, but clearly someone with a pure sadistic vision. Imagine a 15cm high, 10 cm wide bump with a small heightened nipple to really shake the bottom of every car. I hadn’t had a concussion until the ambulance drove into the hospital area! Now I’m not so sure…

Once inside they managed to put me in a wheelchair to go down to have bits x-rayed. As I still couldn’t really breathe they decided to do a CT scan of the whole tórax area. I had now been given some more painkillers so they thought I should be able to lie down and sit up whilst they took the pictures they where after. After lots of torture in the wheelchair, poking down plates behind me to reach and x-ray the depth of my mangled body. The decision was that I was very broken, and I was brought into a little closed cell room awaiting where they could put someone as broken as me.

A doctor came in and they had seen I had a few broken ribs as well as a broken collarbone but their biggest worry was the damage and compression over my left lung. I was sent to a nicer room and I had oxygen in my nose.

This is where I still am, it’s now Thursday. I have 9 broken ribs, 2 in front and 7 at the back. I have 1 broken collarbone but as it looks now it should be able to heal without any surgery. I have my dislocated shoulder that now is back in its place and I have this compressed lung, that one just have to be gentle with. As long as I keep the oxygen on I’m fine, as soon as I try and stand up or sit without the oxygen I feel terrible and like I cannot breathe. Hopefully it’s got nothing to do with my broken ribs…

So now one has to see what one can do. The six weeks that broken bones normally needs to heal takes me into April. As the show we are going to doesn’t start until mid April for me, it could be ok. The reason for the show was more a way of showcasing the horses we have for sale. So it might be better to do the show later on.

The skiing trip will be the next thing to think over. The doctors are keeping their eyes on my lung as the only thing preventing me flying. I’m more afraid of walking on slippery surfaces… I don’t know if I’m up to pausing my life again, it’s gone beyond a joke. And I cannot laugh, it really hurts!

Keep smiling 🙂 but stay away from laughing, coughing or hiccups!!!