Oh How Plans Change

When I was making plans on Friday for this weekend, I had pictured the weekend going much differently...

View from the porch

I got up yesterday morning and after putting Rohan and Turin outside, I started on the house chores.  Partly through cleaning the upstairs, I thought with the rain, it'd be nice to bring in Rogue and Doolin, and of course Rohan and Turin.  Rohan and Turin made it inside without any incident.  Then I moved onto Doolin and Rogue.

My general operation of getting Doolin and Rogue is to open the door and let Doolin out.  He will run down to the other kennel and do a lap, he and Gambit exchanging barks the whole time.  Then Doolin will run up to the house, normally leaping over the five or so stair to reach the porch and then slide into the door.  While Doolin annoys Gambit, I reach into the kennel with the door mostly shut and grab Rogue by the collar.  From the kennel door that's next to the house to my door is maybe 30 feet.  Not that far.

Well, yesterday the first part went well.  Doolin went down to do his loop around the other kennel, I grabbed Rogue by the collar and we hurried up the steps.  We didn't make it in time.  With the rain, I was going a little slower up the steps since they can be slippery when wet.  I had just reached the top when Doolin slammed into the back of my knees.  Down I went and lost my grip on Rogue.  I heard both of them run to the other end of the porch and they started coming back towards me.  I need to grab one of them before they go on a long romp, I thought.  So I'm scrambling to stand back up again so I can grab one.  Unfortunately with the rain, wet step, wet boot and two very excited dogs, I went down again.  Going down again hurt worse this time.  The two dogs got past me as I again clambered to my feet, wincing as I went.

I turned around and Doolin was doing laps in the yard, he wasn't that hard to get into the house.  Rogue looked at me, sniffed along the stone wall fence for a bit, looked at me again and then was off.  I stuck Doolin on the cable tied to the porch, grabbed a leash and walked down to the neighbor's house.  No Rogue.  Walked up to Old Fart Lane, no Rogue.  Walked back to my house, got the Jeep and headed towards the center of town.  No Rogue.  Headed in the opposite direction, no Rogue.  Drove back home, got into the house and there goes Rogue, running past the window.  I go back outside and manage to catch her - Rogue is soaked.  I stick her into her kennel and Doolin gets to come inside (I was a bit afraid to open the kennel door again without Rogue escaping, Rogue was so wound up).

I started to calm down and realized I hurt.  I must have gone down on my right side during the falls.  My right ankle, knee and wrist hurt.  My right thigh muscles and hip were the loudest complainers.  I had swelling above my right ankle and above my right wrist.  The knee, I think was complaining due to the muscles in the thigh and hip.  I'm pretty sure I did a split one of the times I went down - maybe both.  My body isn't currently geared for splits.

My plans for the weekend went out the window.  I couldn't take the dogs for a run when I was only hobbling around my house and lifting my right leg made the muscles in my thigh scream.  I couldn't trust my hip not to give when I inadvertently rotated on my right leg.

Adrenaline is great while you are in the midst of excitement, it's pretty good as masking pain.  When the drama is over, then the pain really comes out to play.

Such a promising beginning to the day...

I was bummed.  I had such plans for the weekend.  Especially running the dogs Sunday night.  I was even more disappointed when there was snow on the ground and mountains this morning and knew I still couldn't trust my right hip and muscles enough to run the dogs.

Moral of the story?  You don't need to be on a sled run to get hurt.  Actually, I seem to get hurt more just hanging out with the dogs.  This is not the first time Doolin has taken me out at the knees, but last time it didn't hurt.  Here's hoping I'm all healed by next weekend...maybe even earlier.  If nothing else, happy first snow!

The culprits.