Tuesday, November 2, 2010
I VOTED!!!
Today is the day to head to the polls and let your voice be heard! I don't care if you are republican, democratic, independant, or if you don't care about politics at all, every American should vote. I don't neccassarily get into politics myself, but these people that are "working" for us in Washington are doing more than fighting over silly laws that won't effect most of us, (which they do), they also vote on things that will effect you and me directly. How many of us are using financial aid right now? Who do you think decides how much money there is to hand out? How about these lovely roads we use. These people are in charge of trying to balance a budget, that if they fail, we will see a huge hike in taxes. If they do manage to balance the budget, I will put money on the fact that a lot of "extra" things, like grants, and money matching to many different projects across the state and country will come to a screeching halt. Each of us are individually vested in the future of our country. You will have different ideas on how this country should be run, and by voting for the person that best reminds you of yourself, it puts your goals and ideas into better reach. We, as a country, will never agree on anything, but we do need to be happy that we are able to have the discussions, and the disagreements without persecution . So get out there and vote people, and GOD BLESS AMERICA!
My Life Changing Event
I remember my dad always saying we can rely on two things in life: Death and Taxes. We grow up knowing this, but for some reason, we ignore the first, until it comes knocking on our door. My dad has always been a hero to me. Like most little girls, I was going to marry my dad one day. He could do everything. He would work on the farm for 18 hours a day, then come in the house and play Barbies with his four girls. There was always work to be done on the farm, but he was always there for us when we needed him.
That fateful Friday started like any other Friday for me, I woke up at 4am, went to work as a cook at a local restaurant, and clocked out at noon. I was sitting around with the rest of the employees shooting the breeze when my boss came in the break room and told me I had a phone call. It wasn’t abnormal to get a phone call at work, so I wasn’t concerned. I went out to the front of the house to answer it, and strangely enough it was my sister Billie on the other line. We don’t talk much, so for her to be calling me, at work, was eye brow raising. I answered the phone, “This is Tammy”
“It’s Billie, Willie was just paged out on a first responder call, and the address was Dad’s”.
“I’ll be right there”. I slammed down the phone in a hurry. I ran back to the break room to get my keys from my purse, my coworkers asking “So who was that?” I responded, “Billie. First responders are at dads house, where are my damn keys?” I was getting frantic. I dumped my purse out on the table, finally found my keys, and ran to my car. Both my parents had been on the volunteer first responder’s team, and had drilled into our heads to never call 911 unless someone was literally dying. Broken arms or legs do not constitute calling emergency services, so I knew this was going to be bad. My dad’s house was only two miles from where I worked, and the drive there was surreal. I know it only took about 90 seconds to get there, but it seemed to take forever. Random thoughts kept going through my head like, “dad might be ok- he wouldn’t call 911 to save his life anyway, it must be a neighbor who is hurt”, “Dad can’t be hurt, he is unbreakable” and “He cannot possibly be hurt, because I am just not ready to deal with this”. I wanted to throw up. I kept telling myself to “breathe”. As I was driving up to his house, I saw the first responders ambulance vehicle parked in the driveway, the tri-state ambulance was in the front yard, and a multitude of the volunteers vehicles scattered around the house and down the road to the feedlot on the property. I pulled into the driveway spitting gravel, flung the car into park, and raced to the gate at the feedlot, where my brother-in-law, Willie, was walking around.
“Where is my dad?”
“He is in the house, upstairs” he replied.
I ran back to the house, up the deck stairs two at a time, and into the kitchen. There were people everywhere. Billie was there, along with a police officer, whom I recognized, but couldn’t place a name to, along with Cindy, a neighbor and head first responder, as well as five other responders and the two ambulance drivers. Dad was lying on the floor on his back, with his knees up. I didn’t get a good look at him, but I could tell he was breathing. Good sign.
“What happened” I asked.
The officer responded, “Well your dad called into 911 saying something was wrong. He didn’t recognize his face in the mirror. There was blood on it, and he didn’t know how it got there. When the first responders got here, they found him sitting at the kitchen table, without his pants on, holding his head. They are checking him out right now. Willie and I took a walk to the feedlot, as the tractor and shit spreader are in there, thinking he was working there. We found a puddle of blood on this side of the gate, so we think he passed out there for a while, as the blood is starting to dry. There is a trail of blood that leads to the bathroom downstairs, the bathroom up here, and the kitchen sink.” Then I heard my father scream. It was impossible to mistake the pain behind it. My attention shot to him. The first responders had him on the stretcher, and were trying to get him to lay his legs flat.
“Does your leg hurt Gary” Cindy asked my dad.
“My leg don’t hurt, but my hip joint hurts when I try to flatten it out.”
“That’s okay Gary; we can transport you with your leg up.”
“I have a chiropractor appointment at twelve o’clock, someone needs to call and cancel it.”
“Dad,” I said, “we can worry about that later.”
“No, you need to let him know I won’t be making it”. Good lord, I thought, the man is crazy.
Cindy then turned to me and asked which hospital Dad would want to go to. For a minute I didn’t know how to respond. I do not remember my dad going to a hospital for anything other than to visit other people. “Franciscan” I finally said. It’s where all of us girls were born. My parents must have liked that hospital for some reason. The responders immediately started to get him down the stairs, to be loaded into the ambulance for transport. “Is there anyone you need to call” Cindy gently reminded me. Her comment jump started my brain. “Dads girlfriend is in Kansas”, I could feel Billie’s eye’s burning a hole through me, a touchy subject, “but she is driving a bus, should I call her now or wait till she stops for the night?”
“Call her tonight, we don’t need her to get upset when she is driving” Cindy replied. “The ambulance will be leaving shortly, if you wanted to ride with”.
“I will drive.” I needed a cigarette. A whole pack.
I left the house the way I came in, realizing when I got outside, I had left the car running and my door open. I got back into the car, turned it around and waited for the ambulance to pull out, and lit that amazing cigarette. It immediately started to calm me down, and helped my brain continue to function, as I realized, I need to call Jason, my husband.
The ambulance with its lights on pulled out and I was right on its tail. I pulled my cell phone out and called Jason. He was at work until 3 o’clock. “Answer the phone”, I thought as I kept hearing the rings. I had to leave a message. “Jason, I am on my way to Franciscan, dad got hurt, I need you to call me ASAP!” Then I called my little sister Renee, she answered. I told her what I knew, and she said she would be down from Rochester in a few hours; she just had to get out of work. We discussed calling our other sister Peggy, and decided against it until we knew a little more about dads condition, as we know Peggy tends to be overly emotional, and she would be bound and determined to drive that way, potentially putting other people at risk. As the ambulance and I headed down the inter-state, I noticed other cars were not moving to the right. “Get out of the damn way, people!” I shouted to no one. And why aren’t we going faster? We finally made it to the hospital, where I had to break away from the ambulance to find a legal parking space.
I got into the emergency room entrance, went right up to the desk and said, “My dad was just brought in here, where is he?” “Oh- yes,” a nurse replied, “he is in a room being looked at right now, we are going to have some questions for you if you could go to the registration desk right over there, then we will come get you when you can go in to see him.” I went over to registration and answered the questions they had for me. It didn’t take very long, as my dad didn’t have insurance. They sent me to a waiting room with the assurance that a doctor or nurse will be out to talk to me shortly to update me on what is going on. I sat down and made myself take a few deep breaths. “Calm down” I told myself. It only took about two minutes before “being calm” wore off. I started to fidget. I needed something to do. “Ah- call the chiropractor that dad was so worried about”. I called them; let them know Dad was in the hospital and to cancel all appointments that were already made. Who knew how long he would be here? After fifteen minutes of watching whatever was on the corner TV, the hospital pastor came in and sat next to me. He asked if we went to church, and if he could contact the minister for me. I gave him the information, and he prayed a prayer. I wasn’t able to concentrate on what he was saying, though I appreciated the thought. The clergy man left and I was alone again. An hour stretched by. I wanted so badly to cry, but what would be the point? No one else was here to comfort me. Jason was still at work, my sisters weren’t here, and my parents are divorced. Even as an adult it would be really nice to be able to lean on my mom right now, but I don’t know what the rules are about a divorced spouse in a situation like this. I realized then that my stepsiblings were at school. They would get off the bus, walk into a house with blood smeared everywhere and not know what was going on. I started calling Jason again. It took two tries before he answered. I explained what was going on, and told him to get to my dad’s house and wash all the blood up before the kids got home. “Bring them over to the hospital if they want to come” I told him. I hung up the phone feeling a little better for having talked to him. Again, that feeling didn’t last long. “What in the name of God is taking so damn long” I thought, “Even if they found internal injuries, someone should have come out and talked to me by now.” I walked up to the front desk just as Billie and Renee were walking through the door.
I asked the front desk what was going on with my dad, and they gave me look of surprise. “No one came and told you that you could go in yet?” the nurse said. “NO!” I responded. “Well, he is in that room right there” she said as she pointed across the hallway. Billie and Renee were right behind me when I entered the room. Dad was lying on a bed with a white bandage around his head of dark hair. Upon stepping closer, you could see the dried blood all over his face; in his hair, down his cheek, in his ear, around his nose, and all over his arms. The rest of his body was covered with a sheet.
“Hi Dad, how ya doin’?” I asked him.
“Who is that?” he asked. He was looking around, but wasn’t able to move his head for a neck brace. “Tammy, Renee, and Billie are here.”
“Oh”, he said, “there are 15 calves in the little barn that need to be fed, and 20 in the big barn. 2-1 ration.” He was talking slowly, slurring his words a bit. The staff definitely had him on morphine.
“Dad”, I said, “We will take care of it, don’t worry about it.”
“Well I don’t need calves dying on me” he replied.
Dad fell asleep about this time, so my sisters and I went out into the hallway. We sat on a bench in the hallway just as my mom walked in the door. Billie must have called her. I was relieved to see her. I called Jason again to tell him he would have to do chores for dad, and he said he was already on it. A nurse stopped by and told us that they would be taking dad in for some x-rays then straight to ICU, if we would like to meet him there in a little bit. The four of us went outside for a couple of cigarettes. From there Billie and mom decided to go home.
By the time Renee and I got up to ICU, dad had already been given a room. Dad was awake again, talking to the nurses. They were asking him about his hearing and eyesight. He told them he was deaf in both ears, and couldn’t see out of one eye. He thought he was being funny. Renee and I got it right away, if he was deaf, he wouldn’t have heard the question. One of the nurses didn’t think it was funny, but the other nurse did. They asked if he knew where he was and why he was there. He knew he was at the hospital, “being waited on by my new cute young nurse girlfriends”, but couldn’t remember exactly what happened that caused him to need to be here. My dad is a humorous guy to begin with, and apparently putting him on some stiff pain medication really brings the comedian out. Luckily, the nurses seemed to have been trained for these types of jokesters, and didn’t take offense to anything he said. They updated his emergency contact information, and it was a strange feeling of honor when he had them put my information at the top of the list. The nurses said that dad would be staying in ICU for about 24 hours while they monitor him, and wait for all the tests to be returned. From there, if no immediate danger was found, he would be sent to a recovery room. Nurses came and checked on him every hour throughout the night, and about 2am, Renee and I went home to get some sleep.
We came back the next morning at 8am. They had just moved him to recovery, ahead of schedule. Good sign. Renee and I spent the day in his room, talking to him when he was awake, watching TV when he would randomly pass out. Throughout the day, he would recall memories of what happened. By the end of the day we had pieced together that he had been out cleaning the feedlot, he had gotten out of the skid-steer, on his way to the tractor and the lights went out. A steer must of head butt him from behind. The steer must have kept going after him from all the bruises on his body, but lucky he had passed out pretty quickly. If you try to fight an animal, they will keep attacking you. Because he passed out, dad was still alive. He had crawled over the gate and passed out again, though he didn’t remember getting over the gate, then made his way into the house, where he eventually called 911. By mid-afternoon, the extended family was dropping by to visit and exchange their stories of man verses animal. Dad decided that the steer might have won this round, but the fight wasn’t over yet. The next day and a half went without incident, dad becoming more and more restless, until he was literally walking the halls in his gown. Another sight I thought I would never see. The next afternoon, dad was released from the hospital with orders to take it easy. We took him home, having to stop once for him to throw up. It was painful watching him be sick, not being able to make it better for him, wanting to hold him like a child, knowing if you said anything, he would come back with a harsh response, upset that his children had to see him be less than in charge of something. Dad lasted less than twenty-four hours before he was back out on the farm. I, myself, was not impressed. I wanted him to stay in the house for the next week, but knew that was a battle I would lose quickly, so I kept my mouth shut.
Two weeks later, Jason and I received the phone call that dad won the fight. Apparently dad was back in the feedlot when the steer tried again. Once an animal knows it can attack you, it will try again. Dad had a gun with him this time. Dad won. He was very proud of himself, and took great pride in grilling up the first set of steaks from that animal. My dad survived, albeit with some real hearing loss in one ear. His humor was in-tact. He gives credit to the steer for fixing his back, as he has not had to go to the chiropractor in the three years since the attack.
The incredibly scary time of not knowing what was going on, or if my dad would be okay, only lasted 12 hours, but seemed like forever, and changed my thinking about farming all together. Before that Friday, I knew farming was dangerous, that you had to treat the animals with respect and never trust them, or turn your back on them, but after that Friday, I didn’t know if I could trust my dad to know those same things. I live right across the road from where all this took place, and for the next year I would stop what I was doing to watch dad or Jason if they went into the feedlot, waiting, ready to call 911 if something happened. I wanted to tell Jason to forget farming, it’s too dangerous, and I wanted to tell my dad that he had to retire. I wanted to treat him like a child, wrap him in bubble wrap and not let him out of the house so he couldn’t get hurt. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do or say those things. It would break dad’s heart to know that I now look at him not as my father, but as my child that I must protect at all costs. Most days, I am able to ignore the dangers of the farm, and trust him to be safe, but there are still some days, every once in a while, that I dread that phone call that started this whole thing in the first place.
That fateful Friday started like any other Friday for me, I woke up at 4am, went to work as a cook at a local restaurant, and clocked out at noon. I was sitting around with the rest of the employees shooting the breeze when my boss came in the break room and told me I had a phone call. It wasn’t abnormal to get a phone call at work, so I wasn’t concerned. I went out to the front of the house to answer it, and strangely enough it was my sister Billie on the other line. We don’t talk much, so for her to be calling me, at work, was eye brow raising. I answered the phone, “This is Tammy”
“It’s Billie, Willie was just paged out on a first responder call, and the address was Dad’s”.
“I’ll be right there”. I slammed down the phone in a hurry. I ran back to the break room to get my keys from my purse, my coworkers asking “So who was that?” I responded, “Billie. First responders are at dads house, where are my damn keys?” I was getting frantic. I dumped my purse out on the table, finally found my keys, and ran to my car. Both my parents had been on the volunteer first responder’s team, and had drilled into our heads to never call 911 unless someone was literally dying. Broken arms or legs do not constitute calling emergency services, so I knew this was going to be bad. My dad’s house was only two miles from where I worked, and the drive there was surreal. I know it only took about 90 seconds to get there, but it seemed to take forever. Random thoughts kept going through my head like, “dad might be ok- he wouldn’t call 911 to save his life anyway, it must be a neighbor who is hurt”, “Dad can’t be hurt, he is unbreakable” and “He cannot possibly be hurt, because I am just not ready to deal with this”. I wanted to throw up. I kept telling myself to “breathe”. As I was driving up to his house, I saw the first responders ambulance vehicle parked in the driveway, the tri-state ambulance was in the front yard, and a multitude of the volunteers vehicles scattered around the house and down the road to the feedlot on the property. I pulled into the driveway spitting gravel, flung the car into park, and raced to the gate at the feedlot, where my brother-in-law, Willie, was walking around.
“Where is my dad?”
“He is in the house, upstairs” he replied.
I ran back to the house, up the deck stairs two at a time, and into the kitchen. There were people everywhere. Billie was there, along with a police officer, whom I recognized, but couldn’t place a name to, along with Cindy, a neighbor and head first responder, as well as five other responders and the two ambulance drivers. Dad was lying on the floor on his back, with his knees up. I didn’t get a good look at him, but I could tell he was breathing. Good sign.
“What happened” I asked.
The officer responded, “Well your dad called into 911 saying something was wrong. He didn’t recognize his face in the mirror. There was blood on it, and he didn’t know how it got there. When the first responders got here, they found him sitting at the kitchen table, without his pants on, holding his head. They are checking him out right now. Willie and I took a walk to the feedlot, as the tractor and shit spreader are in there, thinking he was working there. We found a puddle of blood on this side of the gate, so we think he passed out there for a while, as the blood is starting to dry. There is a trail of blood that leads to the bathroom downstairs, the bathroom up here, and the kitchen sink.” Then I heard my father scream. It was impossible to mistake the pain behind it. My attention shot to him. The first responders had him on the stretcher, and were trying to get him to lay his legs flat.
“Does your leg hurt Gary” Cindy asked my dad.
“My leg don’t hurt, but my hip joint hurts when I try to flatten it out.”
“That’s okay Gary; we can transport you with your leg up.”
“I have a chiropractor appointment at twelve o’clock, someone needs to call and cancel it.”
“Dad,” I said, “we can worry about that later.”
“No, you need to let him know I won’t be making it”. Good lord, I thought, the man is crazy.
Cindy then turned to me and asked which hospital Dad would want to go to. For a minute I didn’t know how to respond. I do not remember my dad going to a hospital for anything other than to visit other people. “Franciscan” I finally said. It’s where all of us girls were born. My parents must have liked that hospital for some reason. The responders immediately started to get him down the stairs, to be loaded into the ambulance for transport. “Is there anyone you need to call” Cindy gently reminded me. Her comment jump started my brain. “Dads girlfriend is in Kansas”, I could feel Billie’s eye’s burning a hole through me, a touchy subject, “but she is driving a bus, should I call her now or wait till she stops for the night?”
“Call her tonight, we don’t need her to get upset when she is driving” Cindy replied. “The ambulance will be leaving shortly, if you wanted to ride with”.
“I will drive.” I needed a cigarette. A whole pack.
I left the house the way I came in, realizing when I got outside, I had left the car running and my door open. I got back into the car, turned it around and waited for the ambulance to pull out, and lit that amazing cigarette. It immediately started to calm me down, and helped my brain continue to function, as I realized, I need to call Jason, my husband.
The ambulance with its lights on pulled out and I was right on its tail. I pulled my cell phone out and called Jason. He was at work until 3 o’clock. “Answer the phone”, I thought as I kept hearing the rings. I had to leave a message. “Jason, I am on my way to Franciscan, dad got hurt, I need you to call me ASAP!” Then I called my little sister Renee, she answered. I told her what I knew, and she said she would be down from Rochester in a few hours; she just had to get out of work. We discussed calling our other sister Peggy, and decided against it until we knew a little more about dads condition, as we know Peggy tends to be overly emotional, and she would be bound and determined to drive that way, potentially putting other people at risk. As the ambulance and I headed down the inter-state, I noticed other cars were not moving to the right. “Get out of the damn way, people!” I shouted to no one. And why aren’t we going faster? We finally made it to the hospital, where I had to break away from the ambulance to find a legal parking space.
I got into the emergency room entrance, went right up to the desk and said, “My dad was just brought in here, where is he?” “Oh- yes,” a nurse replied, “he is in a room being looked at right now, we are going to have some questions for you if you could go to the registration desk right over there, then we will come get you when you can go in to see him.” I went over to registration and answered the questions they had for me. It didn’t take very long, as my dad didn’t have insurance. They sent me to a waiting room with the assurance that a doctor or nurse will be out to talk to me shortly to update me on what is going on. I sat down and made myself take a few deep breaths. “Calm down” I told myself. It only took about two minutes before “being calm” wore off. I started to fidget. I needed something to do. “Ah- call the chiropractor that dad was so worried about”. I called them; let them know Dad was in the hospital and to cancel all appointments that were already made. Who knew how long he would be here? After fifteen minutes of watching whatever was on the corner TV, the hospital pastor came in and sat next to me. He asked if we went to church, and if he could contact the minister for me. I gave him the information, and he prayed a prayer. I wasn’t able to concentrate on what he was saying, though I appreciated the thought. The clergy man left and I was alone again. An hour stretched by. I wanted so badly to cry, but what would be the point? No one else was here to comfort me. Jason was still at work, my sisters weren’t here, and my parents are divorced. Even as an adult it would be really nice to be able to lean on my mom right now, but I don’t know what the rules are about a divorced spouse in a situation like this. I realized then that my stepsiblings were at school. They would get off the bus, walk into a house with blood smeared everywhere and not know what was going on. I started calling Jason again. It took two tries before he answered. I explained what was going on, and told him to get to my dad’s house and wash all the blood up before the kids got home. “Bring them over to the hospital if they want to come” I told him. I hung up the phone feeling a little better for having talked to him. Again, that feeling didn’t last long. “What in the name of God is taking so damn long” I thought, “Even if they found internal injuries, someone should have come out and talked to me by now.” I walked up to the front desk just as Billie and Renee were walking through the door.
I asked the front desk what was going on with my dad, and they gave me look of surprise. “No one came and told you that you could go in yet?” the nurse said. “NO!” I responded. “Well, he is in that room right there” she said as she pointed across the hallway. Billie and Renee were right behind me when I entered the room. Dad was lying on a bed with a white bandage around his head of dark hair. Upon stepping closer, you could see the dried blood all over his face; in his hair, down his cheek, in his ear, around his nose, and all over his arms. The rest of his body was covered with a sheet.
“Hi Dad, how ya doin’?” I asked him.
“Who is that?” he asked. He was looking around, but wasn’t able to move his head for a neck brace. “Tammy, Renee, and Billie are here.”
“Oh”, he said, “there are 15 calves in the little barn that need to be fed, and 20 in the big barn. 2-1 ration.” He was talking slowly, slurring his words a bit. The staff definitely had him on morphine.
“Dad”, I said, “We will take care of it, don’t worry about it.”
“Well I don’t need calves dying on me” he replied.
Dad fell asleep about this time, so my sisters and I went out into the hallway. We sat on a bench in the hallway just as my mom walked in the door. Billie must have called her. I was relieved to see her. I called Jason again to tell him he would have to do chores for dad, and he said he was already on it. A nurse stopped by and told us that they would be taking dad in for some x-rays then straight to ICU, if we would like to meet him there in a little bit. The four of us went outside for a couple of cigarettes. From there Billie and mom decided to go home.
By the time Renee and I got up to ICU, dad had already been given a room. Dad was awake again, talking to the nurses. They were asking him about his hearing and eyesight. He told them he was deaf in both ears, and couldn’t see out of one eye. He thought he was being funny. Renee and I got it right away, if he was deaf, he wouldn’t have heard the question. One of the nurses didn’t think it was funny, but the other nurse did. They asked if he knew where he was and why he was there. He knew he was at the hospital, “being waited on by my new cute young nurse girlfriends”, but couldn’t remember exactly what happened that caused him to need to be here. My dad is a humorous guy to begin with, and apparently putting him on some stiff pain medication really brings the comedian out. Luckily, the nurses seemed to have been trained for these types of jokesters, and didn’t take offense to anything he said. They updated his emergency contact information, and it was a strange feeling of honor when he had them put my information at the top of the list. The nurses said that dad would be staying in ICU for about 24 hours while they monitor him, and wait for all the tests to be returned. From there, if no immediate danger was found, he would be sent to a recovery room. Nurses came and checked on him every hour throughout the night, and about 2am, Renee and I went home to get some sleep.
We came back the next morning at 8am. They had just moved him to recovery, ahead of schedule. Good sign. Renee and I spent the day in his room, talking to him when he was awake, watching TV when he would randomly pass out. Throughout the day, he would recall memories of what happened. By the end of the day we had pieced together that he had been out cleaning the feedlot, he had gotten out of the skid-steer, on his way to the tractor and the lights went out. A steer must of head butt him from behind. The steer must have kept going after him from all the bruises on his body, but lucky he had passed out pretty quickly. If you try to fight an animal, they will keep attacking you. Because he passed out, dad was still alive. He had crawled over the gate and passed out again, though he didn’t remember getting over the gate, then made his way into the house, where he eventually called 911. By mid-afternoon, the extended family was dropping by to visit and exchange their stories of man verses animal. Dad decided that the steer might have won this round, but the fight wasn’t over yet. The next day and a half went without incident, dad becoming more and more restless, until he was literally walking the halls in his gown. Another sight I thought I would never see. The next afternoon, dad was released from the hospital with orders to take it easy. We took him home, having to stop once for him to throw up. It was painful watching him be sick, not being able to make it better for him, wanting to hold him like a child, knowing if you said anything, he would come back with a harsh response, upset that his children had to see him be less than in charge of something. Dad lasted less than twenty-four hours before he was back out on the farm. I, myself, was not impressed. I wanted him to stay in the house for the next week, but knew that was a battle I would lose quickly, so I kept my mouth shut.
Two weeks later, Jason and I received the phone call that dad won the fight. Apparently dad was back in the feedlot when the steer tried again. Once an animal knows it can attack you, it will try again. Dad had a gun with him this time. Dad won. He was very proud of himself, and took great pride in grilling up the first set of steaks from that animal. My dad survived, albeit with some real hearing loss in one ear. His humor was in-tact. He gives credit to the steer for fixing his back, as he has not had to go to the chiropractor in the three years since the attack.
The incredibly scary time of not knowing what was going on, or if my dad would be okay, only lasted 12 hours, but seemed like forever, and changed my thinking about farming all together. Before that Friday, I knew farming was dangerous, that you had to treat the animals with respect and never trust them, or turn your back on them, but after that Friday, I didn’t know if I could trust my dad to know those same things. I live right across the road from where all this took place, and for the next year I would stop what I was doing to watch dad or Jason if they went into the feedlot, waiting, ready to call 911 if something happened. I wanted to tell Jason to forget farming, it’s too dangerous, and I wanted to tell my dad that he had to retire. I wanted to treat him like a child, wrap him in bubble wrap and not let him out of the house so he couldn’t get hurt. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do or say those things. It would break dad’s heart to know that I now look at him not as my father, but as my child that I must protect at all costs. Most days, I am able to ignore the dangers of the farm, and trust him to be safe, but there are still some days, every once in a while, that I dread that phone call that started this whole thing in the first place.
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