Yo bitches, I am back. Apparently, where I have been the Bad Mother crown and DHB prize are mutually exclusive. I gave up the rock hard drugs in favour of continuing to BF a nearly 10mo who bites. Yes, I am a fool. But I did get my own bottle of Entonox for 3 whole days. The novelty nearly wears off after a while, but it would certainly be a lovely thing to have just one more whiff right now, as the only thing I can have at home is paracetamol. 
So let me explain where it all went wrong. There I was, on Little Horse - who you may remember I bought in order to have an easier horse than Big Horse. Big Horse was a super-duper high-maintenance prize-winning pile of diva-ish preening sensitive snow white giant boy-horse with a fondness for mud and a neeeeed for exercise every single day to keep his one little brain cell in place. I loved him dearly, but he was, well, impractical. Little Horse is placid, mud coloured and doesn't care if he isn't even looked at from one day to the next. Oh, and he is only a baby neddy. That is a slightly important fact.
I scraped the mud off him, dragged him out of the field and plonked him in a competition last Sunday, and blow me if he didn't Perform! Beautiful, controlled, fluent jumping - everyone was complimenting him. We were in a competition called the Working Hunter, and everyone who clears the jumps goes back into the ring together for the go round melee. And that's where I should have used all the years of experience I've accrued, instead of going 'Yee-ha, my horse is the best - gallop, gallop, gallop!' and giving him a big kick. Or so Cluck tells me .
Little Horse was either pissed off enough that I thought to demean him by giving him a kick, or thought 'finally, we get to have some fun!' Who knows which. But he did a great big buck I wasn't expecting - well, he's never bucked before - and I did an apparently fabulous Cossack riding display at a flat out gallop around the ring, while the spectators went 'hang on, hang on, hang on..... oooh!!!!!' I landed on my feet, which isn't as good a thing as it sounds, because the foot that touched down first twisted slightly and pinged the ligaments right off my ankle, complete with various fragments of bone. Little Horse stopped instantly and stood quietly beside me while I sat on the ground, still holding the reins and shouting 'could I have an ambulance please, I have broken my ankle. I heard it.' I was initially told not to be so silly, but there was no way I was going to try and get up so Cluck took Little Horse and an ambulance was called and I was shipped off to the hospital.
Initially I was told it was not a bad break, but nothing happened for days while various consultants wandered past and told me it was a little worse than the last one thought and I should lie there till they come and look at me tomorrow. All this time I was in a small ward with 3 very old ladies with hip replacements and being looked after by nurses of varying competence. All of the doctors tried to persuade me to give up BFing when I told them it smarted a bit but was BFing so couldn't take morphine. On day 2 when I was told by one consultant to put ice on my leg and elevate it yet the nurses seemed incapable of bringing me any form at all of elevating it and ice became scarcer than gold, I finally had a little temper tantrum and told one of them that my ankle fucking hurt and I couldn't have it operated on till the swelling was down, and since they were doing bugger all to help with that the least they could do was bring me a bottle of Entonox as I knew I could have that. They raised their eyebrows and went 'ooh, we've never given anyone that up here,' but went an got me one anyway, and then proceeded to top it up for the next 3 days. Result! So I was vaguely pissed and as a result not really bothered at all for a while, and finally they came and took me off to theatre.
The anaesthetist was a lot more switched on about BFing than the orthropaedic surgeon. He gave me a spinal block and sedative for the surgery so I would be able to give LG his breakfast next day - he only missed one milk meal in the 5 days I was in hospital. I was given a small dose of diamorphine which wears off quickly to last just until I got back to my bottle of G&A. I wasn't exactly asleep for the surgery, just not aware. Apparently I chattered about the kids throughout it - I don't remember any of that! I have had bits of free-floating bone removed, and the bits that were still attached to ligament have been screwed back to the tibia. And then a backslab cast put on too tight which I can't have taken off till Wednesday. My toes didn't hurt till they put a cast on, but now they have no blood supply. Would be so fucking typical to survive a smashed ankle but lose a big toe to loss of circulation!
So there we go - as has been pointed out, it must be the most extreme way going to get out of ending maternity leave! At least work have to pay me sick pay at my full basic rate, so I can sit at home on full basic, supervising the over-running builders. The nanny starts in 3 weeks, and my mother is here till then, and a local girl home from uni for the holidays has been drafted in to look after Little Horse. I can't walk, get about, do housework, or anything except watch TV, read, and play with the kids. It's a bit of a bummer, but at least I can go to my own birthday party now!
PS TT is being just lovely - she keeps wrapping her favourite blankets over my leg to make it better.