KEY POINTS:
Unlucky philanthropist-turned-high country farmer Chrissie Fernyhough, who was trampled by a cow, is about to learn to walk again - if doctors agree to remove her plaster today. Fernyhough, whose book The Road to Castle Hill: a high country love story was published in October, has also been diagnosed with osteoporosis.
Doctors at Christchurch Hospital did a CT scan, "that's when they discovered I had holes in my bones like some sort of Italian cheese".
Recovery from the accident was slow, painful, and all about mind control. She laughs as she describes weeks of pain and frustration.
The day she arrived back at Castle Hill after her six-hour operation to reconstruct her crushed ankle, she started her own "advent calendar", never crossing off a day she had to spend in plaster before lunchtime. Instead of "looking out the window, resentful and full of self-pity," she used the farm's ride-on mower as a mobility scooter.
At tailing time she joined in by injecting the station's 2500 lambs with Vitamin B12. "It's the one job on a farm you can do sitting down," she says. "I sat at the end of the tailing chute with my legs up on another chair and when we were finished they came and picked me up."
That way the hands-on owner got to inspect her farm and stock, join in smokos, talk farm talk with manager Snow, and spend time with Midge, the heading dog Fernyhough is convinced saved her life by attacking the cow "who was coming back for another go".
She also painted the last outbuilding to be restored at Castle Hill, which will hold her collection of New Zealand memorabilia, continued to promote her book, and practised visualisation.
"I've been visualising running, ringing up for this sturdy, East Coast-bred horse, 14 hands and aged between six and 10 [that can pick its way through the high country without unseating its rider]. To be honest I'll be better on a horse with this ankle."
Although she has been forced to pull out of a long-planned trip to India, she will head to Auckland for Christmas and in February will continue her book-promotion tour."With any luck, it's two more sleeps and I'll be in a moon boot!"
