THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 25, 1994 TAG: 9412230228
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Random Rambles
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
I will tell you this: Paula Grimstead is my idea of a versatile lady. She can come to your assistance whether you are a two-legged human who needs a nurse or a four-legged equine type who needs a new pair of shoes.
Grimstead is both a farrier and a student nurse. Farrier comes from the Latin word for iron and ``farrier'' rather than ``blacksmith'' is what you call someone who shoes horses. ``Student nurse'' is what they call student nurses and Grimstead is working toward registered nurse status after a lapse of 20-some years.
She was on her way to a nursing career in the early 1970s when the first of the Grimsteads' five children announced his presence. Now, two decades later, she's working and studying at DePaul Hospital, plus answering the call of horse-owners in the far reaches of Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Suffolk and Elizabeth City.
I met her in my favorite commercial establishment, Great Bridge Books. She was wearing a T-shirt that said she was a lady farrier, and I thought that was was pretty unusual. It is, but not totally. Besides Grimstead, there is a lady farrier named Ann Crawford, who lives on Centerville Turnpike.
A 41-year-old with a girlish smile, Grimstead and her husband Allen live in the way-out boonies near Knotts Island. Their house has been the family home for three generations. Allen, a fire captain at Oceana Naval Air Station, used to farm some on the land around the house but gave it up. ``Got tired of getting the same produce prices I got 20 years ago,'' he says.
Paula has been a horse-lover since childhood, when she lived on Blossom Hill, next to the Creeds school. ``Horses get to be your best friends, like dogs are for some people,'' she says. ``I'm a trail rider, and I get into situations where I have to trust my horse and he has to trust me.''
About six years ago, she was holding one of her horses for a farrier when an idea struck like one of those light bulbs turning on over a head in an old comic strip. ``I can do this,'' she said to herself.
And she could. But not without taking the nine-week course at the Eastern School of Farriery at Martinsville. (I hope the school has sports teams so the students can come and cheer themselves horse.)
Being a city boy, I have contented myself with being able to tell the front end of the horse from the back end. But I learned from Grimstead that a hoof is a mass of matted hair. Shoes protect the hoofs from excessive wear or injury, and they can be used to treat problems just like corrective shoes on people. The shape or thickness of the shoe can affect the way a horse moves.
I wondered about whacking nails into a horse's foot, and Grimstead told me there is a natural white line around the surface of the hoof. Outside the line is the non-sensitive area where the nails go. Inside, it's Ouch City.
But even putting nails where it doesn't hurt won't ensure Dobbin's complete cooperation. Or the farrier's complete safety. Grimstead knows. She has been kicked in the knee hard enough to be out of commission for two weeks. She has been kicked in the gut hard enough to knock her backward. And there was the time a horse shooed a fly with a kick that grazed Grimstead's head. Farriers, Grimstead says, have to be very much aware that they are working beneath an animal that is anywhere from 1,000 to 1,200 pounds and capable of sudden movement.
That's why one of Grimstead's working rules is ``Shut your mouth and shoe the horse.'' If she's chatting, she says, she may not be tuned in to the muscle tension that means a horse is getting tempery. Or if the person holding the horse is listening to Grimstead, the hold may not be secure. So, shoe now, shoot the breeze later. ``People don't realize how much in jeopardy a farrier can be,'' Grimstead says.
However, even without the flat-out danger, there are physical stresses and strains. Grimstead has touches of carpal tunnel syndrome, a painful hand problem caused by repetitive motion. ``And no one can shoe forever,'' she says. ``Your back won't let you.''
That's why she's cut down some on her shoeing schedule to take up the nursing career she swapped for motherhood back in the 1970s. Her goal is to become a nurse-midwife. ``My last three children were delivered at home by a midwife,'' she says. ``It was a very spiritual experience.''
She took note of one minor carry-over from shoeing horses to being a nurse. Every now and then, when she wants a patient in a wheelchair to stop, she says ``Whoa!''
But despite the 20-year break in her nursing studies, she believes she's still well prepared for the challenges. Anyone who has raised five kids, she figures, has earned a master's degree in patience. by CNB