if you follow along on instagram maybe you saw my story or maybe you saw my picture - but the takeaway was...i broke my elbow on saturday.

how does a 33 year old mom of two girls break her elbow?

being a badass, of course.
 
or not so much.

the short story - i was riding motorcycles with my farmer in the desert during our kid-free weekend. on mile 25, going about four MPH (maybe less, maybe a little more), we were in a rocky patch and my front tire hit a rock and just skidded out from underneath. i went down, obviously pretty hard. but don't worry...i broke the majority of my fall with my left hand...resulting in a broken elbow.

the full story...kind of. (it hurts to type.)

farmer and i gassed up the bikes, saturday morning, and he gave me a brief tutorial on how to shift. he was finally taking me on a ride. (we had been meaning to go all year.)

the desert is in our backyard with tons and tons of trails so we headed out and my farmer showed me a few spots he's happened upon in the past. including a scary cave that he insisted i go into. so i did.

we visited an old homestead that had been reduced to a few stones stacked on one another. he told me "this could have been yours." that farmer - he's hilarious.


at mile 23 my farmer and i stopped. there was a fork. we could head out a few miles towards the highway and make our way back on paved roads or continue on the trail and go back that way. i opted for the trail. bad decision.

two miles later i wrecked, got slammed into the dirt and rocks, hit my head, and immediately knew something was wrong with my wrist. it was instantly painful. my thought - don't cry. if i didn't cry and it was indeed broken...i could say i broke my wrist and didn't cry.

two gold stars for toughness.

luckily my farmer looked back right as it happened, stopped, threw his own bike down and helped me up. we left my bike on the trail and he rode me the final five miles back to the house. my wrist and hand hurt terribly, but all of a sudden my elbow was starting to hurt as well.

i parked it on the couch with my arm on a pillow and some ice and my farmer went back to work. because...farm work doesn't care about broken elbows.

a couple of hours later my farmer checked on me and i told him my arm just felt so funny. he said it was time to take me to urgent care.

he helped me change my shirt, button my pants...and offered to fix my hair. i didn't care if it had dirt and shrubbery in it...my arm hurt.

i won't bore you with the details of our visit with the doctor, but just know - getting your elbow x-rayed is on my list of things to never do again. so painful. also, it was as the doctor was poking and prodding that i realized the pain in my wrist had greatly subsided and was now localized in my elbow.

as we waited for the diagnosis / x-rays, i decided my elbow was dislocated...not broken. if it was dislocated they could just pop it back in and i'd be on my way. that wasn't the case. as we now know, my elbow was broken and they put me in a temporary cast and sling. it was heavy and uncomfortable and terrible and i hated it. this was when i cried.

i cried because i instantly thought of my girls. just knowing all the struggles we were going to encounter over the next four to six weeks.

i can't make them dinner. i can't fix kaye's hair. i'm not sure if i can get them dressed. i definitely can't change sawyer's diaper. basically...i can cuddle them with my right arm and that's it.

the silver lining - i saw the orthopedic specialist on monday and received the best news. no cast! apparently casting an elbow isn't in the cards because they want you to be able to have range of motion.

so, my elbow is free and i'm doing physical therapy. i can't lift anything heavier than a phone and at this point i have extremely limited range of motion. i can't come close to straightening my elbow and i definitely can't bring it up to touch my shoulder. this means - i can't even put my hair in a ponytail. getting dressed has gotten easier, and i'm pretty proficient in making toast one-handed.

basically i'm a big ball of ridiculousness.

so - where are the girls?

when all this happened my farmer's parents offered to keep the girls for a few more days. this was a god-send because i'm still in a fair amount of pain and pretty helpless.

i hate being helpless.

my farmer is an angel. he just keeps telling me that everything will be fine. he can take the girls to work and he basically wants me to be on vacation for the next four weeks. but talk about the mom-guilt. i'm going to have to figure out how to make myself helpful.
with that - you can find my farmer with our best gals in mccall and you'll find me on the farm sitting on the couch designing stationary and invitations and the like for my new etsy shop - Wink & Ink. (you can also find wink & ink on instagram!)

go have a look! i only have four goodies in the shop at this point, but will be adding more and more over the coming weeks. each designed lovingly with one hand...because it hurts to twist my hand to use the shortcut keys.

effing elbow. that's the last time i try to be the  cool mom.