It was the best of times, it was the worst of times!

Dickens is too long dead to resent my stealing his line, but if I took all the time in the world, I don’t think I could come up with one more apt for the last couple of months. As you may have noticed we have been to busy to keep the blog up, but that has now changed. You will have a great deal to read as I catch up on the our goings on.

We have had the best of times with a group of young ladies from Mexico City you may remember then from this post.

http://www.life-in-el-corazon.com/2009/05/my-dusty-love-note.html

A road trip to Texas, house sitting in San Miguel, and just working and playing in the garden. Many of these things you will be updated on shortly on this blog.
But…..

We have also just has the worst of times. You may remember our adventure with a hummingbird stuck in our skylight some time back. Here is that post.

http://lifeinthecorazon.blogspot.com/2008/03/lion-witch-and-wardrobe-it-aint.html

Well, it just happened again. So Shannon, my wife, goes to use the same technique that worked last time.
Sadly, this time it did not go so well. The skylight is a bit over 20 feet off the ground. While at the top of the ladder, suddenly her world turns upside down, and she falls to the floor.
She hit the floor hard, really hard. I hear her scream and I come running. I find her on her back, blood gushing from her head, and her femur sticking OUT of her leg.
A quick shout out to my neighbour to call and ambulance, then I am at Shannon’s side, holding the leg stable and doing what little I can to reassure her.
The additional gruesome details I will omit, but let me give you a summary.
The head injury looked much worst that it was. The neurosurgeon on hand at hospital stitched her up after making sure there was no damage to the skull.  A quick CAT scan confirmed no  other head problems, although we will have to be a little wary for the next little while, and keep her on anti coagulants.
Oh, and the scar she will have on her forehead, is the shape of the Mercedes Benz emblem. I just hope she doesn't want to get the car now to co-ordinate her look!
The surgery to repair her leg took twice as long as expected, as they has quite the jigsaw puzzle to put together. Below you can see the results.

OUCH!

There was a great deal of blood lost, first from the head wound, then from the surgery. Sadly Shannon’s blood type is AB-, very rare back home, and even rarer here! This has lead to Shannon being very week and tired, but she has been receiving injections that are helping with this.
Prognosis for the leg: it will be a long haul, and a great deal of hard work to rehabilitate the injury, but we are confident she will be able to walk again. The area of uncertainty is the damage to the knee. The knee cap was broken, but the knee also hyper extended in the fall so it will be some time before we know if there will be full range of movement or not,  if there will be a limp or not. That is assuming no other complications.
While this has been a rather nasty accident, we are feeling very lucky. The knee hit first, if it was the head that hit first the outcome would have been death or paralysis.