I thought we had a deal with the birds!

June 25th...It was a beautiful Friday. The sun was shining & it was warm. Another non-typical Wales summer day. The locals keep telling us this weather is not normal. Generally, there are only 2 weeks of summer, meaning sun & warm weather, & the rest of the time it rains. We are in week 4 of wonderful weather. It was around 1:30pm. The boys needed to go out and take care of some business. We have been taking out the dogs on their retractable leashes each time they needed to go out as Aaron hasn't decided where the best place was to put out the outside tie out. I got the boys ready to go; Cabo's leash in my left hand, Hardee in my right. I open the door. Cabo takes off with me behind. Cabo pulls me out of the door. His retractable leash is locked. He jumped from the door to the yard over the retaining wall. I get slammed into the retaining wall of our garden.

As you can see, there is a lip. My entire left hip got slammed into the wall. My left shoulder is pulled by Cabo's 55lb pull. I look up and there is a pigeon in the back yard. It's on the ground. One would think the thing would fly away. Not me! Nope, the pigeon waddled towards the back of the property where there is an exit to the other yard. I'm thinking in my head, "Fly, damn you, fly! We have a deal!" Since the pigeon was still in the yard and Cabo hasn't killed it, he's still after it. I do not recall how I got into the back yard, but once I got Cabo's attention (meaning the pigeon is gone) all got quite on the western front. The whole time I held onto Cabo's leash. Hardee, I let go. Since Hardee is such a chicken, he cowered in the yard and never moved. Both dogs proceeded to do their business & we went back into the house.

Once in the house, I took inventory of myself. Hip, in pain. Shoulder, in pain. Clothes, filthy. I have scrap marks on my right side. I am just in shock of everything that happened. I get the phone to call Aaron as he is still at work. I can't get ahold of him. I get myself situated in the living room watching mindless TV to keep my mind off the pain. Everytime I move my left hip, it hurts like nothing I've felt before. The dogs leave me alone. Finally, an hour later, Aaron calls. I told him what happened and he's on his way home.

Aaron gets home and we are on our way to the Hospital. Thank God Aaron knows where he is going. We get there & of course we have no clue where to go. Aaron walks around & finds where we are to go. I get car side service to the door and am greeted by a man and a wheelchair. I go inside and get registered. We wait. There appeared to be a few people infront of us. It was HOT in the hospital. Air conditioning is not hospital wide.

I didn't have to wait long to get my initial consultation. I give my vitals. They ask me my pain level. 1-10 scale where 1 is not much and 10 is well, we all know. As much pain I was in, I said 9. That was MY pain level not the scales. Needless to say, I got some good drugs to take away the pain. Morphine, my friends, I got morphine, but it was called something else. Nurse wanted me to have this so by the time the Dr. sees me, they can do a full examination with minimal pain on me. Well, the Dr. saw me 5 min after taking the morphine. Examination occurred & I needed an xray. We had to go OUTSIDE to get to the Xray facilities. It was weird, but the Xray facilities are air conditioned. Please, oh please, let me wait as long as I can in this area. Nope. Pretty quick to get the xray done. By the time the xray is done, the drugs are kicking in full gear. I am giggling & feeling no pain. Back to the HOT waiting room to wait to see the Dr. again. Not a long wait. Nothing broken but huge bruise that will be deep and painful. We are almost out of the place. We had to go and wait for my prescription in the HOT waiting room. (In Wales, the prescriptions are free. After 5pm, all prescriptions are distributed from the hospital.)

The waiting room is HOT. I am still in the wheelchair. Wimbleton is on. I start feeling like I am going to get sick. I ask Aaron to take me to the bathroom. I start sweating like crazy. I get into the bathroom (handicap) & splash water on my face. I look in the mirror and I'm white as a ghost. Aaron already saw that I was going to pass out so he got a nurse and the Dr. who both came & pulled me in back. I got immediate attention & some oxygen. I started to come around. A wonderful side effect to the morphine. What what!! I rock!! NOT! Since I felt nauseated, the nurse gave me shot to help. The shot was in my right thigh in the meaty part. (yes, I have a meaty part to my thigh!)OMG, that hurt! Once I felt better, I was given the okay to go as Aaron was given my prescription. I also received a wonderful pair of crutches. Not the under the armpit kind, the ones where you use your hands. I almost fell leaving the place. Again, I had doorside service and we went home.

I slept great that night. I did feel like I got beat up and was hung over on Saturday morning. But what really bummed me out is Linda, a friend of Carrie Obert, was in town. She called & I wasn't able to make it to hang out with her. A lot was going on in Cardiff. It was the Armed Forces Day parade. Prince Charles was in town. There was a bunch of things going on in the Bay too. Not to forget Paul McCartney was in town Saturday night. I spent a beautiful Saturday on the couch rotating ice off of my hip.

This morning...this is what we woke up to:



Birds and the Potters are not friends right now!