Out of the hospital and walking

Hi folks — greetings from sunny Santa Rosa, California. I’m out of the hospital and walking, and just wanted to share a few pictures and give a bit of an update on what actually happened to me. On Saturday I was attacked by a wild boar in Sonoma County, and I’m lucky to still be here.

I’ll write more about the attack when things have settled down, but the short story is that I arrived in Sonoma County late on Friday night so that I could visit my family, who was in the area for my sister-in-law Kelsie’s Ironman triathlon. After I wished her good luck at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning, I was out with the dogs around dawn when we were attacked by a wild boar. Skillet was jarred but unscathed, while Kaida and I are both lucky to be alive. Both of my legs were lacerated to the bone, and I was released from the hospital just yesterday. I’m spending the next few days at a Santa Rosa hotel with my mom, who has been kind enough to prolong her stay be a few extra days in case my recovery turn shaky.

If you want to see what my legs looked like after surgery, click here. It’s not too bad, but it’s also not for the squeamish.

But as you can see from the pictures below, both Kaida and I are feeling much better.

One more thing: Charles Schulz used to live in the area, and when he stayed in the hospital in the 1990s, he left a Snoopy cartoon on one of the walls. When the hospital was remodeled, the wall was cut out and preserved behind glass. I wanted a goal to walk toward when I was first using my newly stitched-up legs, so I decided to wander the hospital until I found the drawings. I apologize for the poor quality of the cameraphone photos, but I thought I’d share what I found here. If you’re wondering what exactly is going on here, Snoopy is trying to use an incentive spirometer.