An Open Letter of Thanks/Don’t Delay Checkup for Cracked Ribs

     I wanted to publicly thank my family, the Van Horne Jewelers’ staff, and our customers for their great support during my recent ten-day hospital stay.

     It all started Thanksgiving morning when I went mountain biking with my son Ben and Van Horne Jewelers’ goldsmith Kevin Smith at Rum Village. The ride started with great excitement. Ben was in the lead, I followed, and Kevin picked up the pieces. We had not made it down the trail for more than five minutes when I had my first wipe-out after sliding on wet leaves while turning a corner.

12-8-12 - Post Hospital

     Despite such an early wipe-out and less than ideal conditions, we went on to circle the whole five mile loop twice. Ben navigated the entire course without a single wipe-out. Kevin had three wipe-outs, one of which sent him flying over the handlebars. I faired even worse with seven wipe-outs, including one in which I thought I may have cracked my ribs.

     After that I was in some pain, but not so much that I felt the need to go to the hospital. I had some pain killers from prior surgeries and figured that I could wait it out (huge mistake). After two days, the pain had not gone away and it was getting to the point that the pain killers didn’t totally handle the pain, so I finally decided that I should get it checked out.

     I went to Med-Point and after the doctor examined me he quickly surmised that I needed to head to the hospital. I checked into the ER at Memorial Medical Center. There, they found that I had a collapsed lung and three cracked ribs. They drained the lung and I started to recover, but then the lung started to fill again. Because I had delayed in coming in and due to the unusual result of my accident, their diagnosis had been thrown off. Their further inspection found a cut in a minor artery and a ruptured diaphragm, and they immediately got me into surgery to make repairs.

     I spent the next eight days recovering and unfortunately had to miss our open house sale. Thanks to the great staff at Van Horne and our customers, though, we were still able to have a record open house, and a great start to December.

     I wish to thank Dr. Mark Thompson, Dr. Charles Lamb and Dr. Gerard Duprat for keeping me around for my family and my extended family at Van Horne Jewelers.  Thanks also to our almighty God for sparing me once again.

Madison Knight