And This is Why EVERYONE Should Wear a Helmet

So, remember how I talked about the damage to my helmet here?

Well, when I went to see Orion yesterday, I was at the barn for a minute and got to see what it looks like for myself for the first time. I brought it home with me for further inspection.

Bear in mind, my description in that post was based on what my grandpa had told me. In reality, it's not entirely accurate. What he described and I pictured and the reality of the helmet don't exactly match up. I'll just let you see for yourself though...

Left side

Back

Front (missing visor fell off the first time I used the helmet.

Right side (where I landed)

Now also keep in mind that aside from the missing visor, there were no marks on this at all before I was thrown.

Looking at it gives me two strong feelings:

--Pride and thankfulness that I started the good habit of wearing a helmet while riding a long time ago and continued it that day even though I expected Orion to ultimately behave.

--An intense awareness of what could have happened if I hadn't been wearing it and it had been my head that made contact with the ground at that force.

So I know a lot of people preach it, and then there are some that don't. You can go on a million rides, do a million things, and everything can work out fine. 

But what happens on ride number one million and one, when something DOES happen? Wouldn't you rather be here to tell about it? You can't brag and tell everyone about that epic fall that you had and survived without a scratch if you're dead or in a coma or brain-damaged because you didn't wear a helmet, and your head took the full brunt of a rock, a tree, the ground, or literally ANYTHING else nearby.

I know that may seem melodramatic, but really. You NEVER know what could happen.

As for me, I'm shopping for a new helmet this week...

Still Friends

The other day at work, I was asked by a customer why my arm was in an immobilizer. I explained to him what happened with Orion, and he nodded along. It turned out that he had a little experience with horses and completely understood the theories that some of us have for why it happened.  However, before moving on to get his meal, he asked something that no one else has asked me: Are you still friends?

Well, yes. But here's an even better visualization of my yes...

I stopped out to visit Orion today for the first time since he threw me 3.5 weeks ago. (I haven't been avoiding him; I had just been staying with my mom out of town.)

Apparently he had thought I was gone forever or something, because as soon as he saw me climbing over the fence, he took off at a very fast trot to get to me from the other side of the field. He didn't slow down until he was right in front of me and wouldn't let the other horses near me. They had followed him like good little minions (hahaha, Orion has minions now! It cracks me up, but now I have to prove to him that I'm not a minion.).

He stood very close to me the whole time and kept affectionately nuzzling me and gently sniffing my hair and face, and when I climbed back over the fence and said goodbye and headed back to the car, he leaned over the fence and stared after me as I left.

He puts me through a lot of shit sometimes, but I love this horse with all my heart.

I'm Freeeee!

I went to the doctor for follow up x-rays yesterday, and I'm freeee! No more immobilizer unless I'm sleeping or at work!  Collarbone is healing well, albeit super slow, as predicted.  They said I'm doing everything I should be though, and I have good range of motion (hereafter referred to as ROM) given what happened and the short amount of time it's been (2.5 weeks).  However, I have to up my ROM exercises from here on out, or I will end up with a frozen shoulder, which I am not okay with happening.

I was told to do as much as I can with it (without lifting anything or doing any sort of repetitive motions (think washing tables or walls)).  I was also told that I'm going to feel pain and more than likely feel that bone grinding together (think two jagged ends of a stick and some large splinters all jammed together side by side - that's what the broken ends and fragments look like on the x-rays).  According to them, that is normal and won't further damage it.  Their biggest concern right now is ensuring that I don't do any lifting with that arm and that I'm getting enough ROM built back up in the coming weeks so that everything works properly when the bone is finally healed.  

So it looks like that light pushing of the limits over the past week has paid off somewhat!  The nurse looked mildly surprised when she asked me to lift my arm as high as I could and I got it almost as high as it is supposed to go (almost - not quite - and I hadn't pushed it anywhere near that far prior to the doctor's visit, so I was pretty surprised myself). Some motions still require assistance from my other hand to move my arm as far as it can go, but overall, it's not nearly as bad.  And since I didn't have it in the immobilizer yesterday afternoon up until I went to bed and had been forcing myself to use it more when reaching for things, rather than use my good left arm, I could feel that it had loosened up somewhat already and was getting easier to move.

Here's to hoping I can rehab it on my own and get it healed and stronger as quick as possible so I can get back to doing everything I had wanted to be doing right now!

That Feeling

I've definitely felt this before:

Anyone else ever have this feeling? lol

Considering recent events in my life, I've just been wondering, what's the worst fall/throw you've had?

Theories Of Why All Hell Broke Loose

So, in my last post, I told all about what happened when I tried to get on Orion at the new place.  I've talked at length with a few people that I trust in all matters horse and otherwise about it, and these are the things we have come up with.

1. Boss horse who thinks he's a badass mentality
2. Seclusion from other horses during work
3. Pain
4. New place
5. New blanket
6. Bee sting/fly bite (But really, no.)

1. Boss horse who thinks he's a badass mentality.
It quickly became clear, pretty much from the moment he was put in with his new herd, that Orion is going to have a much higher spot in herd dynamics from what he used to be.  In every other place he's ever been in, no matter how many or what kind of horses he was with, Orion has been at the bottom of the totem pole.  No respect from other horses.  Bullied constantly.  Wouldn't stand up for himself.  Most of the time not allowed a primary spot in the barn with the other horses, or really even to hang out with them in the field.  For a time, he had a buddy who was pretty much herd royalty and didn't take crap from anyone, and that helped him out a little.  After that horse (who was very old) died, Orion still had lingering privileges that he had gained when buddied up with him.  Also after he died, he started standing up for himself more.  Not enough to rise to the top, but enough to keep from constantly getting his ass kicked and to allow him to socialize more and make new friends.

So, imagine my surprise when he immediately seemed to take the lead with Merrill and Vanna.  Huh.  Oookay then.  I had joked around beforehand that it would be hilarious if he became boss horse....welllll.... I didn't really think it would happen, and I definitely didn't think about the consequences it might have on our dynamic.

It had been discussed in the past that his overly pushy, stubborn demeanor (which came out a LOT in the early days, whether from the ground or under saddle) might be coming from the fact that he couldn't be assertive in the field, but with little old me (or any other person if you want to compare their size to his), it was obvious he could get his way just by throwing his weight around, threatening to bite or kick (or in some situations, actually biting), and just overall acting like an asshole.  I worked with him from the ground A TON to form a bond and still gain his respect.  I learned the hard way that I couldn't just be his friend.  I had to be his leader, because while I wanted a partnership first and foremost, there had to be a leader in the dynamic, and it couldn't be him.  I learned just how aggressive I sometimes had to be from the ground.  When we started riding more, it was a whole new learning curve of learning just how aggressive I sometimes needed to be when he was under saddle, and over the course of a summer when I was actually able to work with him a lot, he started behaving really well for me no matter what we were doing.  As free time dwindled and I was forced to go out less and less, those manners started to dissipate.  I learned pretty quickly that if I hadn't been out there for a while, I needed to do some serious back-to-the-basics work for the first part of our visit; otherwise, he had the idea that he was still in control of everything he did, just like he had been for months in the field with no work.

I write all of this because this is the basic process I have been through with this horse for the past three years.  He's grown better through leaps and bounds and has definitely had some two-steps-back situations, but altogether, he's a very different horse than when I first met him.  But all of that work was done while he was in the same herd, with fairly consistent dynamics, at least as far as he was concerned.

This is why I feel like this is one of the biggest reasons he acted out when I got on him.  Our bond and respect for each other has ALWAYS been stronger from the ground because that's where we've done the most work together.  His respect for me from the saddle has always been shakier because we've done less work there.  So it makes sense that he was being good, calm, collected, and giving no signs of what was to come when I was dealing with him from the ground that day. We haven't had a problem with that in a long time.  It wasn't until I got on him - literally THAT SECOND - that he blew up.  A close friend recently said that it seems like he was in the mindset of, "It's MY body, and I'll do what I WANT," which obviously did not include riding in a new place.

2. Seclusion from other horses during work.
This was something I honestly hadn't given a whole lot of thought until after the fact.  At the old barn, the paddock that we groomed, tacked up, and did any kind of groundwork in, was just on the other side of the fence from the field where the other horses were.  So even when we brought them "in", they were still able to interact with their friends from the other side of the fence.

Cut to the new barn: It's a good long walk up the road from the field the horses are currently in.  He couldn't interact with his new friends.  He only had me and a big, unfamiliar barn.  Yes, we did a bunch of stuff there that morning before this happened.  Yes, I loved on him and spent time just trying to get him to chill and relax further so he would associate this new place with those kind of things, in addition to the work we'll hopefully be doing there.  But in retrospect, even though he was calm, the whole time we were there, he was staring up the driveway, back the way we'd come from - back toward the field and his friends.

My other top theory is that he knows I can't stay on him for more than a few seconds when he bucks.  He knows that.  He's done it to me four times now (including this last one).  Once was on our way through an empty field to get to some trails, and he didn't want to leave the barn and got pissed at me when I wouldn't let him go back.  Once was when he got bit by a ginormous horse fly (I barely stayed on for that one) in the paddock.  The other time was last fall when we had the Gator/four-wheeler incident (that was one buck that technically didn't unseat me, but it came damn close.  What actually did it was when he whirled and fell into the ditch).  Then there was this, which was by far the hardest he's ever bucked with a rider.  I think he knew he could throw me so he could go back to his buddies, which is exactly what happened.  He didn't wait around as he has when I've been thrown or fallen (I've fallen more than been thrown) in the past.  He was there for maybe 30 seconds before he trotted up the drive and back to his herd.

Not okay.

Pain.
This is a new one that I don't really think I've discussed on here before.  I don't necessarily think this was the reason for what happened that day, but it is something I want to get checked out in the near future.

It was suggested to me last summer that Orion may have a condition known as degenerative suspensory ligament desmitis, or DSLD.  I've never had him checked for it because it hasn't appeared to cause him pain.  I have, however, been watching for it to see if the symptoms worsen....and they have.

The most obvious symptom is dropping of the fetlocks.  The condition usually develops after a tendon or suspensory ligament injury (deep digital flexor tendon strains, anyone?), and the weakening of the ligament causes the fetlocks to sink lower to the ground.  Going back through pictures, it's slightly noticeable in the first couple of years that I had him.  I didn't know anything about it until a year ago, but when I did find out, I decided to do some research and ultimately made the decision to wait and see.  The thing is, there's not a whole lot that can be done for it if he does have it.  There are some experimental treatments, but most of them are insanely expensive.  The only way to really diagnose it is through ultrasound, which is what I'm planning to see if I can have done.

The reason for doing this now is not that he appears to be in pain, though now that I have him closer, I plan on watching him very carefully to see if any develops.  The reason is because ever since I found out about this, I've been paranoid and anal about watching his legs every time I'm out there.  They do appear to have gotten worse since I bought him.  I was willing to admit that.  They weren't perfect then either (his conformation has always been wonky; it's just how he is), but they looked better than when all of this was brought up.  Before the end of May, I hadn't been able to do anything with him since the end of January.  I had taken out grain and gone out to pay my board and had always run out to check on him and say hi, but those visits didn't last long.  It didn't occur to me at those times to look at his legs.  When I went out by myself in May, I noticed how much different his legs appeared to be.  And in the next couple visits leading up to the move, I noticed it again - it was like it jumped out at me, which is what really made me take a step back and go, "Holy crap, that's bad."

That is what made me start kicking around the idea to have him looked at.  I was thinking about it before any of this went down.  Now that he's where I can go out at a moment's notice, I want to have it done.  Whether he has it or not, it will give me peace of mind in knowing.  If he doesn't, we'll know it's just bad conformation.  If he does.....I will give him the life he deserves until it's no longer good for him.  I won't let him suffer if that's what happens.  But I will give him the best life possible in the time he has.

I hate even talking about that possibility.  I was discussing it with my mom a few days ago and completely lost it and started crying, and so did she.  No one wants that to happen.  But it's a real possibility.  Maybe not in the near future - it may be years and years down the road.  But if he has DSLD, there's nothing that can be done for it, and there's a possibility that eventually, the only humane thing left to do would be to put him down.

I just hope with all my heart that it doesn't come to that.

4. New place.
I've heard this one suggested over and over again. I won't deny that it may have played a factor in some way, but really, I don't think this is what caused it.  From his behavior during every other part of the visit, I expected a little nervousness, maybe some jigging, or "WTF is that?" reactions - things he's done in the past when dealing with something new and a little scary - if he even did any of that.  I know a lot of horses have bad reactions to new places, but my horse has always been ultra chill about almost anything new put in front of him.  If he were to do anything in reaction to being in a new place, I really don't think it would have been anything as extreme as what he did.

5. New blanket.
The only difference in our tack that day was his new Western saddle blanket.  This has been suggested, but I don't think this was a factor either.  It was a different material than what we've been using, but not something different than he's experienced before.  It has wool padding, which we've used in the past.  I spent a good long while looking over it when I took the tags out to make sure there weren't any little plastic pieces left behind that could poke him, and by the time I was done, they were all accounted for and not in the blanket anymore.

6. Bee sting/fly bite (But really, no.)
This just occurred to me in the last few days, mostly because it's been a reason for him bucking once before.  But honestly, I don't think that would have warranted bucking of that violence.  Plus, the flies and other insects had been leaving him alone for a while at this point, as I had doused him with fly spray not once, but twice that morning.


So, those are my ideas.  If anyone has anything to share or add, please feel free to do so.  My shoulder isn't at the point where I can go start working with him yet, so I'm still in the planning phase of what to do when I can get back out there to do stuff.  Any help or advice is much appreciated!

All Hell Breaks Loose

Grandpa dropped me off at the pasture Orion and his new little herd were in. They were all standing close together, grazing quietly.  Orion looked up and watched attentively as I approached.  I set my bookbag, which contained my lunch, a few bottles of water, and some music for the barn, by a fence post and let the fence rails of one section down. I didn't have to go far to catch Orion, and I had to shoo the other horses away to keep them from leaving the field with him.  I tied him to the fence once he was out and quickly put the rails back up.

King of the new herd.

We walked up the road to the barn with no incident.  He was curious of everything, but not alarmed.  We went into the barn, where I tied him, brushed him down, checked and picked out his feet, and did some T-Touch massage to further relax him.  He was very looky, but not nervous of anything.  Even the BO's dog, who'd been lying in an empty stall, unbeknownst to me, didn't bother him when he growled lightly to let us know he was there. He warranted a long, curious look from Orion before simply being ignored again in favor of gazing longingly outside.

After loving on him for a while, I decided to take him for a short walk up to the arena so he could have a look at it.  If I DID end up riding him that day or any other, I planned to start there, so I wanted him to be comfortable there.  I didn't want his first look at it to be while I was on his back, where I know he has less respect for me than he does on the ground.  If anything startled him, I didn't want him to feel alone.  So to the arena we went, where he was curious but completely at ease.  There are a couple of barrels set up in the middle, and I led him over to those so he could inspect them.  His inspection included trying to eat one. -_-  Other than those, the rest of the arena is flat and grassy, with trees/bushes completely enclosing it on all sides along with the fence.  We stayed there for maybe fifteen minutes, while he meandered and grazed.

When it became clear he wasn't worried about this place, I decided to take him back to the barn and start working with the bit.  Remember those goals I posted?  I wanted to get started on them right away.  Feet could wait.  They'd been recently trimmed.  Bitting could not wait, as I planned to start riding him around the property to acclimate him as soon as possible.  At that point, I still hadn't made up my mind if I would get on him that day or not, but I at least wanted to get him to take his bit more willingly than he had on our Sunday ride.

It took a while and a lot of attitude and giraffe-necking from him, but I finally got him to take it somewhat willingly four or five times in a row.  It wasn't perfect, but it was a start.  I planned to come out early the next day and do it again to reinforce the lesson.  

Gazing longingly outside and up the drive, probably wishing he was with the other horses.

By this point, he was taking everything in stride, and I thought it would be okay to ride him for a few minutes.  I wasn't going to push it for long, only maybe ten minutes to the arena and back.  I figured I'd hop on, figure out his mindset further, and stop pushing it if he seemed too skittish, which I didn't think he would be.  There were no warning signs of it.  I thought he might be a little more nervous when I wasn't on the ground with him anymore, there might be some jigging, maybe a little headstrong-ness...nothing like what actually happened.

I took him outside the barn and swung up onto my Western saddle.  That was it.  I didn't have time to get my other foot in the stirrup, collect my reins further, nothing... He immediately started bucking.  Hard.  He's bucked a small handful of times with me before, but there have always been reasons leading up to it, some of them nothing to do with me, and never like this.  Because I had no way to really save myself, I flew over his head, and I landed on the gravel driveway, shoulder first...hard.  Orion stuck around for a minute or two, then trotted up the driveway and back up the road to his herd.

I was left on the ground, crying and screaming...not by choice.  It was like I didn't have control of it.  I have never felt that kind of pain in my life.  I tried to get up, but I couldn't because my right shoulder wouldn't work at all.  Trying to roll didn't work either because I was dizzy and couldn't get my body to cooperate.  So I laid there, hysterical, for two or three minutes before I was finally able to half drag myself back to where my phone was laying on the ground, where it had landed as it fell out of my pocket.  I knew where it was because I could hear my music playing quietly from where it was laying.  Before you think it, no, I do not think the music had anything to do with what happened.  I play music around him all the time, same kind that was playing that day, and he's always liked it.  It's actually always seemed to calm and focus him.  I noticed it when I started playing it while doing ground work and have had it playing when riding him in the paddock at the old barn.  So this day, aside from being in a different place, was no different in terms of the music playing.  I have other theories, but I'll explain them later.

So anyway, I got my phone, took off my helmet, and called my uncle to take me to the ER, because by that point I was starting to think I had dislocated my shoulder.  I then called the BO to ask him if he could catch Orion, check him over, and put him back in the field.  Thankfully he works just up the road, and he was able to leave for a few minutes to take care of Orion.  There was also a neighbor who saw Orion trotting up the road, tacked up and riderless, and when he didn't see me go after him, he drove over to the barn to check on me.  He waited with me until the BO came back with Orion's tack and a couple minutes later, my uncle arrived.  By that point, the neighbor had helped me sit up (I had still been lying on the ground when he got there).  They grabbed my good arm and helped me up, and I was somehow able to pull myself into the vehicle on my own (it's high off the ground).

We went to the ER, with every little bump in the road pretty much causing agony in my shoulder.  They took me in, I told them my pain level was a 9 or 10, they took all of their usual data (my BP wouldn't register on the digital cuff, so they had to use a regular one because it was so low), and then they took me back to a bed for more assessment from more nurses and the doctor.  The nurses were awesome.  One of them came over and offered to clean me up while we waited, as my entire right side was covered in dirt.  In cleaning up my face and neck, she found a nasty scrape on the right side of my neck and a few scratches on my arm.  At some point, the doctor came in and said that based on the way I was holding my arm, I had probably either dislocated my shoulder or fractured my clavicle.

I waited some more, and around the time they came to take me back to x-ray, I lost all peripheral vision.  I told the doctor, and she ordered a CT scan, which didn't show anything.  Concussions usually don't anyway, but it ruled out anything more serious for the moment.  The vision loss lasted maybe 15 minutes before it started to go away.  It took forever for the x-rays to come back.  The doctor was badgering them to hurry up.  She impressed me this time around; I've had her before for other issues and wasn't impressed at all.  The only issue anyone had was that she forgot to give me pain medicine until I'd been there for a couple hours.  I didn't know if they were going to give me any, and honestly I wasn't all there at the time, so while I was thinking clearly about some things, like puzzling over what could have caused Orion's reaction, I wasn't thinking clearly enough to actually ask for anything.  It wasn't until my grandpa and uncle were finally allowed to come back, and I burst into tears upon seeing them, that the doctor remembered she hadn't administered any pain medicine yet.  She obviously felt bad and apologized profusely to me before turning to my family and saying, "She was just being so quiet and brave about it all that I never stopped to think about how much pain she must be in!"

A very short time after that, a nurse came in and gave me a shot in the butt (I HATE NEEDLES).  Shortly after that, I was moved to another section of the emergency room because they had another big emergency coming in and needed the space I was in.  At that point, I was just waiting on my x-rays to come back.  When they finally did, I think I had been there for maybe three hours, maybe a little less.  It turned out to be a clavicle fracture.  They gave me a prescription for some pain meds and an immobilizer for my shoulder, had me wait a while longer, then finally let me go.  But the fun wasn't over yet.  Ohhhh no.  I got to the waiting room and suddenly got dizzy, felt nauseous, lost all color in my face, and (thankfully after they got me a barf bag), got sick.  It was horrible, and I had to go back to ER bed I had just occupied for the last four hours.  They got me crackers and Sprite and sat with me while the concussion symptoms dissipated, including the tunnel vision that had come on while I was getting sick.  Then I got to leave the hospital in a wheelchair for the first time in my life because they didn't trust me not to pass out.

My mom came to check on me that evening (she would have been there before that, but I didn't get out of the ER until 4 and had made everyone promise not to call her until I could do it myself.  She was royally pissed about that, but my reasoning was that she would just be sitting in the ER waiting room not able to do anything, when it had become clear that, while painful, my condition wasn't life-threatening.  I didn't want to worry her.  That logic also may have been skewed by my concussion........)

Mom had to help me get ready for bed that night, and by that, I mean she had to cut off my T-shirt because I couldn't get it off any other way.  When she did, this was revealed.  It didn't hurt, which is why I hadn't complained about it, and there had been no reason to take off my T-shirt at the ER, so no one saw it until this point.  I didn't even know it was there, and Mom almost gave me a heart attack when she exclaimed over it.

The next day I went to see the ortho doctor my mom works for, where I was told that my clavicle "fracture" is actually a really nasty break.  See x-ray picture included with this post.  It apparently snapped and then was jammed together so the ends are side by side instead of connecting.  There are fragments all over the place.  I could feel the ends of the bone, and what I'm positive is at least one fragment, shift and grind together with the slightest movement, no matter how still I kept my shoulder.  It was a weird, awful feeling.  The ortho doc gave me a couple of very light exercises to do so that I can keep the muscles in my arm and shoulder from atrophying as much as possible.

The break and one fragment (perpendicular to the clavicle in the middle of the break) can be seen.  In another shot, another fragment can be seen that apparently exploded with more force and was lodged higher up in the tissue of my shoulder.

Scrape on my neck from the fall.

I have to go back for follow up x-rays on the 14th to make sure it's healing properly, and if it is, I'll not have to have surgery.  All of us wanted to see if it would heal on it's own before resorting to that, as most clavicle breaks will heal without surgery.  And if it does heal on it's own, I won't have to deal with hardware problems later on in life.  It will be two months before I can do normal everyday things that require shoulder movement (like washing my hair with both hands rather than one), and it will be at least three months before I can do strenuous activity with it, such as riding.

Side note:  Grandpa went back to the barn a couple days later to look for my coffee mug that I left there in the midst of all the chaos, and he said my helmet is done in.  It would have been done in from the force of that fall anyway, but most of the black foamy part around the bottom is shaved off on the right side.  Apparently the right side is majorly scratched and scuffed up from where I slid on the gravel as well (this also accounts for the mark on the back of my shoulder, though I have no idea why I didn't feel anything from that).

So, that's the reason I haven't been able to write until recently.  That's what happened.  I'm going to stop here for now, because the next logical thing to discuss is why it happened, which is a long discussion, and this post has already been long enough!  You can look for that in the next day or two.

Poor Harry, waiting to be picked up the morning after and not realizing I'm incapable of doing it right now. :(

Upcoming...

Don't worry, there is a very good reason why I haven't posted about last week's move and things that went on immediately before and after it yet.

I currently have a pretty badly broken collarbone.  I had a concussion from Thursday til around probably Saturday afternoon, at which point I finally stopped feeling drunk and decided major painkillers are not for me.

Immediate conclusion: I can be dumb, my horse can be an ass, and when the two happen at the same time, the results are not good.  He's fine; me, obviously not so much. More on this tomorrow.

I didn't write about what happened right away because:

a) I had a concussion and couldn't hold a thought long enough to actually write about it in detail.
b) I was high on painkillers, and while the results of this could have been hilarious, I was with it enough to realize that's not what I wanted this to be about.
c) Until today, I was typing with one hand, and it was royally pissing me off.  Today I tried using my right hand for the first time, and after much fiddling with where to put the laptop, what height to adjust my chair (shut up, I'm short and not supposed to be moving my shoulder, so it was an issue. :P), and exactly how much I could move my hand around without moving my shoulder, I finally found a way that works decently well.

So, there's your reason for the long absence after all of the promised posts started going up.  I have 4 or 5 I've been working on, but none of them are done yet.  My Fiverr queue was blowing up with gigs to be proofread, so I've been playing catch up with that.  There's so much to do, I seriously want to shoot myself, and I've had a couple late deliveries because I couldn't work on them until the last minute.  Thankfully I had the sense to email the buyers when it became clear I wasn't going to have their docs finished in time, and when I explained the reason why, they were very understanding.  So after tonight, I'll have a couple days before the next wave of orders is due, and I'll be able to focus more on posts.

The first couple will be long and detailed, but I promise they're not boring.

So I'm sorry for the wait (Liz! :P), but there will be more to come tomorrow -  even if I have to stay up all night working on it.

Back to editing a 73 page document....... -_-