impaled

Whelp, now I can count having an impostor, a flaming hand, AND impaled ass on my resume for the summer.

My crew was doing OT for timber today. We drove down the Swan just past Condon, about an hour or so from Kalispell, and got to work bushwacking through the jungle of lodgepole pines and forest along the Swan Highway, stapling pheromone packets on Ponderosa Pines on a quest to save them from the dreaded pine beetle.

Toward the end of our day, and in a fit of happiness after having finished one of our last sections, I admit that I got sloppy and started to plow my way through the woods trying to find a route out of a marsh that surrounded me. I walked along a log or two trying to find a passage and then panicked realizing that I'd gotten myself stuck. In an effort to get unstuck I tried to push through but instead trampolined against a wall of bramble that threw me back onto the log on which I was so precariously balanced. I don't remember much other than the site of a stick seemingly going through the backside of my pants, a weird warm feeling and catching myself on some outstretched limbs so that I wouldn't fall further. I thought I might have been lucky and not punctured my leg. I got myself up, through the bramble, and an adrenaline filled 5 feet across the forest floor when my leg finally gave out and a lot of expletives that I didn't know I was capable of came streaming from my mouth.

By a stroke of luck, Joy had just arrived. She's a wilderness EMT and teaches for NOLS. Thank the lord. She kept me calm by asking me the same questions over and over and telling me to cut sections of tape for her to hold the gauze in place. She even endured me asking if I was going to bleed out into my abdomen and die or something horrible like that (thank you wilderness first aid for making me paranoid).

Anyway, after a good effort on behalf of my crew (props to Dillon for helping carry me out), and after having my butt semi exposed on the side of the highway for about half an hour, Joy drove me up to the hospital for some irrigating and stitches, and home.

I thought the drama would end there but then at midnight, my pain medication wore off. I woke up, tried to get up, and then lost my sight and hearing and kept yelling at myself not to pass out. Then I passed out, then I came to, called joy, passed out again, came to, crawled to the kitchen, squeezed a half of a grapefruit into my mouth, peeled a banana that I found half eaten this morning, and got some milk that I desperately drank straight form the container and apparently left on the counter for the night. My return from zombiehood was a welcome relief and when the painkiller kicked in, I was out.

Fearing a similar fate to last night, I spent my morning crawling around my house. I ate some more grapefruit on the floor and decided I could progress to bipedalism. I stood up, made an egg, and then realized that I felt pretty good. Jack will be home soon and I might just be alright afterall.

Love,

Zoe

PS- Please enjoy the image of the puncture hole in my pants.