Dear diary,
Well despite all fears to the contrary, like Elton John, I’m still standing… if not better than I did before. Just sometimes on three legs instead of four… (and if you’re not humming the tune now, are you even hooman?).
So, the reason for the lack of diary last week was not that I had shuffled off my mortal coil, as I know many of you had feared, but more because my mother was more hysterical than Halle Berry giving an Oscar acceptance speech. And to be fair, with about as much tears and snot too. Mother, it’s also fair to say, is one serious ugly crier…
To cut a long story short, last Thursday Herman the German Needle Man and Cool New Shoes Man had been summoned once again, mainly due to me shuffling out of my stable that morning with the enthusiasm of a lame duck. With a bad case of piles.
The dynamic duo turned up like a pair of bargain basement Batmen, with Herman declaring he really wasn’t happy — so less Dark Knight and more ‘oh s***e’. After many more X-rays, some random poking and a completely unnecessary violation of my unmentionables — why he needed to shove something up there when the problem is one of my feet AT THE FRONT is beyond me — Herman degreed that we only had one option left. By this stage, mother was single-handedly sinking the Maldives with the amount of water pouring out of her eyes and nose, so to be quite honest, by the time she’d flung her arms round me and carried on crying, I was a whisker away from reporting her to the Hague for overuse of waterboarding.
Since I’m far better in a crisis than the blubbership, I made it clear that I would agree to CNSM and Herman’s cunning plan, which did seem to involve cowboy surgery and me losing half my foot. But since it was that or the permanent sleep, I decided that it was worth a go and let Cool New Shoes Man loose with a scalpel…
Ten minutes later, there was an alarming amount of claret all over the place — alarming because it was mine and it did appear that it was exiting my body at a speed only usually witnessed when someone shouts “free bar” anywhere near my mother…
Still, Herman does occasionally prove he might have actually earned that medical degree (despite all evidence to the contrary) and did manage to stop me exsanguinating all over the barn — between my blood, mother’s tears and CNSM sweating like Donald Trump’s speech writer, CSI would have had a field day in there; one flash of ultra violet light and the boss lady would be needing a file in a birthday cake, pronto.
It’s fair to say that things are still hanging in the balance; I’m missing a huge chunk of my sole (not soul — that’s mother’s department, as she’s had to sell hers to pay for all of this), and the next week or so will tell if I live to fight another day or whether these might be my final chapters. Mother is walking about looking like a racoon (white-faced, black-eyed, fat and possibly rabid), the boss lady has developed a fixation with my pulse rates, Herman is looking at different oaks for his draw bridge, CNSM is colour coordinating wedding favours with the exact ginger-in-the-wrong-light of my coat, and I’m taking more white powder than an ex-member of the Happy Mondays.
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Donations of morale-boosting mares and food that doesn’t contain drugs would be most appreciated, as would tissues and possibly heavy sedation for the mothership; honestly, if I have any more snot wiped on my mane, I’m going to change my name to Kleenex. No doubt she will keep you all posted via my Facebook pages over the coming days — the odd vibe or two wouldn’t go amiss if you’ve got any spare. Or a kidney you possibly don’t need? Just a thought.
Laters,
Still Hoppy Hovis
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