Tough Cowboy

This past weekend my husband, kids and I traveled to my father's house in Oklahoma for Round Up. We stayed all weekend to work cows with the rest of my family and our good friends. However, Dillon had a pretty rough time of it this weekend.

It was raining all weekend, so things were wet and muddy while the cattle were worked. On Saturday in the first couple of hours, while working on the heifers, my dad hollered at anyone not at the chute to get over the fence. They were about to work a mean cow and when she got out, she would come out fighting.

Dillon started over the fence and heard a noise behind him, so he turned to look. When he turned to look, his left foot slipped on the wet fence. As he started to fall, his right foot got stuck in the fence and his knee popped out of socket. When he was falling, the dislocation only became more extreme, so when his foot let loose and he made it to the ground, he was laying there with a severely dislocated kneecap.

Thankfully my dad hadn't let that cow loose yet, but she was banging and snorting and trying to get out of the chute while Dillon was laying, leg distorted, on the ground. If she had gotten out there would have been no choice but to quickly throw Dillon over the fence, injury and all, to keep him from being mauled by the cow.

Someone hollered at me to come running and when I got there I saw Dillon on the ground, surrounded by people staring at a leg twisted all wrong, an empty socket where the knee should be and his kneecap floating around on the exterior side of his calf. Dillon was in excrutiating pain. Luckily (I guess) I have dealt with bad knees my whole life, mine pop out on occasion as well, so I knew what to do. I talked to my cousin and asked her to stabilize the kneecap and as I straighten the leg, it should pop right in, but guide it if it needs help. So I grabbed the leg and we did it.

We put him on large piece of plywood that someone found in the barn, and carried him out of the lot, and to an SUV. He laid down in the back and I had my oldest daughter, Shelby, get back there with him to stabilize the leg for the 18 miles to the hospital. I showed her how to hold it and where not to, strapped Abby (my four yr old) in and then got behind the wheel and drove.

When we got to the hospital, they x-rayed it, gave him a brace to wear for the next few weeks, and crutches. They said we should see our doctor here in Kansas when we got back (we have an appointment tomorrow) and that we should get a referral to an osteopath. We are supposed to ice every 2 hours for 20 minutes and he can't put any weight on it (not that he would!).

Would you believe this is a picture AFTER the swelling is starting to go down? It's less swollen than this today thank goodness and he actually slept last night. So it will get better from here.

It really was a good weekend, all this part aside, but I am so grateful this is over. I think even as bad as it was, with that cow where she was, it could have been even worse. So I'm making this post part of Grati-Tuesday @ Heavenly Homemakers.