If it gives you a pause, leave it stand there.

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Old Greenhorn is right, I should post a update.
Well, the black and blue that went from just below my ribs to half way down my left buttock turned green then started to fade.  Pretty much gone now near as I can see.   The sharp serious pain faded and I never did eat those pain pills.   Just took lots of ibeprophen and some advil.  Its just what I'd call discomfort now and always improving.  I'm sure you already guessed I never made it to the follow up appointments. I knew I was healing okay on my own.
Mrs. Lapp claims I am my own worst enemy.  She may be right. But no matter. I'm going back to work Monday.

[Machinebuilder]

I am glad to hear good news

[thecfarm]

You will awaken new pains.

[cutterboy]

Glad to hear you're still on the mend and I hear you on those dang pain pills. After my hernia surgery I took one and it sent me for a loop. After that it was ibuprofen and just dealing with the pain. I understand you wanting to get back to work. I'm sure it will feel good even if it hurts a little bit. Your wife will worry so be extra nice to her.

Good luck moving forward!

[Kodiakmac]

From someone who's "been there, done that", I thank you for posting this.

I've worked in the bush since I was a wee gaffer. It took me the better part of 70 years to come to this conclusion: bad stuff is constantly stalking us ... so there's no need to go looking for it. 

So now, when I spy a BUB (big ugly bustard), I leave it alone for age and gravity to do their thing.  That wasn't always the case.

[GRANITEstateMP]

Mr. Lapp,

Just checkin in on ya, I know you were planning on heading back to work this week.  I hope you at least took it easy on your first couple days back in the woods!

 Be safe

Matt

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Guys, I did go back to work.  For four days. Did okay. Maybe a little more cautious than before.  Then my wife came down with that flu that's making the rounds. And of course the next day I had it to. Sick as a dog. We always get flu shots and Id hate to think how long we would have been sick without them. They certainly dont always keep you from getting flu but I swear its never as bad for as long if you get the shot.  Doing okay now but still a little tired and achy.  Its almost funny.  Almost.

[thecfarm]

I had something too. Lasted 24 hours and took me 24 hours to recover.
I "gave" it to the wife and she had it 4-5 days.
I had about the same thing about 40 years ago.
I hope I don't have it for another 40 years.

[cutterboy]

Yes, I had it too for about 24 hours. A good part of that time was sitting on the toilet. then no appetite for two more days. I lost 4 pounds. That was a week ago. Now I'm fine and hungry all the time. 

[Old Greenhorn]

I was thinking about this thread this morning.. I have about 8-10 RO's that need to come down because they lost the gypsy moth battle and are finally dead. (In spite of what the forestry tech predicted.) They range in size from 5" to 45" on the stump. Of course a few of these are major jobs requiring at least a bucket truck. The 45" tree is 12' from my garage, 20' from my house, and is about 75' tall. Others range from that down to 'just cut it and push it over. The trick is doing the ones I can in my painfully manual mode and saving just the trees that really need technical equipment and higher lever skills. About 5 of these trees are out in my swamp, some lean into and some lean out of the swamp. The pretty much have to go down in a pre-set order (one clears the path for the next). I decided to get started today with one that was small, 14" on the stump. When I walked around the tree I discovered it actually had a heavy lean toward my fence. It was marginal as to whether I could wedge it up and over the top to fall 120° away from the lean. In fact more than marginal, it was a pretty good reach to do that. I walked around that tree looking at it from every angle... several times. Then walked away and thought about it. I even dug out a clinometer to see where the top would land if it went for my fence. It looked to have the top branches about 10' past the fence and I figured that was enough to do some decent damage. I went back and walked around it again.
I figured I was due for a hard lesson, it's been a long time since I had a tree go wrong and do damage to something. Also, and this is the big factor that tilted the scales, is that unlike the tree in the OP, this tree presented very little risk to personal injury. Flat ground lots of easy escape routes and the best cutting was from the safe side. SO I geared up and went for it. Fortunately it had no heart rot or ant borings as is common around here. Nice clean wood. I put my face notch in and took the time to clean it up nice with no overcuts. Then I bored through and formed the hinge, also nice and neat. Then bored back a  little but left plenty of holding wood given the leaning weight. I drove 2 wedges, one from each side as far back as possible, then cut the holding wood out and rove a 3rd wedge right in the back cut and started driving. It came up slow, but eventually saw things my way and went over the top and fell pretty much where I wanted it. I had neglected the account for the natural bow in the stem itself when I picked my target, I should have gone more left, but no matter, the top dropped right between 2 other stems that are coming out anyway, so zero damage anywhere. I did not even have to drive those wedges as much as I expected, which is a sign for me that I sized the hinge correctly.

When I started I figured I had about a 40% chance of it going wrong, but adding up the plusses and minuses I figured this was one that would let me know if I was improving in my judgement and technique or set me back on my heels. I had to drive that top over about 15' before the weight was in my favor and that is an awful lot for me. So maybe I'm getting better.

The next one in the swamp coming down is about 24" on the stump and 60' tall, but that one is leaning my way. The one after that is a bucket job.

Mr. Lapp, I hope those injuries are nothing but a memory at this point