Dealing with In-Season Injuries

We're one week into the 2012 Archery Season in Missouri and I already had to take a weekend off, but not because I filled my tag. Had a great opener last weekend seeing lots of deer moving and some close encounters with little bucks, but this weekend was different. After driving back to mid-Missouri Friday night, I had to drive a couple hours east on Saturday morning for a funeral. My Aunt Marty had passed away, and even as a hard-core hunter, it's a pretty easy decision to forego hunting for a chance to say goodbye to Aunt Marty. We arrived home too late to hunt on Saturday night and I had church this morning. 

This afternoon, I was out in the backyard with our two labs and my wife. We were just playing fetch with the dogs and I got my feet tangled with our youngest lab and went down hard. I knew as soon as I hit I was hurt - I just couldn't tell how bad. I came down at a bad angle, twisted to one side, and heard a "pop" when I hit the ground. The impact knocked the breath out of me and I spent the next two minutes just trying to catch my breath. That's a feeling I haven't had to deal with in a long time. 

 

After my wife helped me up, I tried to take stock of how bad it was. Externally, no broken hands or arms, but I'm thinking I have a couple ribs. After trying to move the rest of the day, I'm now wondering if my back is out of sorts as well. Everything hurts. A lot. As I was laying on the ground, though, I just kept thinking, "at least this can't be as bad as Jeff Simpson's injury". My heart goes out to the guy, but man, I hope this doesn't jack my season up too. 

My hunting season is already a bit out of sorts. The last few years, I've tried to go West for an early season archery hunt, but a new job in a new state has me concentrating more on learning new products, people and marketing campaigns and a little less on hunting. I'm still planning on hunting Missouri for archery and have rifle hunts planned in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. And I'm going to try to round out this year with a late-season bow hunt in Mississippi. That is, those were my plans until tonight. 

 

Tonight I'm trying to take it easy, keep my feet up and stay up on pain medications. My wife already had to help me load my truck for the drive over tomorrow. Not sure how I'll deal with this week, but I'll just have to figure it out. Sometimes life is like hunting season. You can make a lot of plans, but sometimes things just happen, and you have to figure out how to improvise, adapt and overcome. 

 

If I can't pull my bow back, I'll still be in the stand with a camera for some friends. I may be moving slowly for the foreseeable future, but I still think I can devise a pretty mean marketing plan. All things being equal, it could have been a lot worse. It also was a reminder of the importance of living in the moment and appreciating the little things. Just like hunting season, you just have to figure out how to deal with it. So I will.