this year's models for the blue and white line of arm slings and knee braces
we had a really good time skiing last weekend with friends. on friday we went up to my (carrie’s) parents while they were in da UP snowmobiling. our friends the fabers (minus chad, who is off galavanting in DC for the state dept – hi chad!) went with us. dan skied saturday while carrie and henry went visiting great-grandparents and some other friends. then we swapped and carrie went skiing on sunday.
we both fell.
dan ended up with a bruised bone in his shoulder and a recommendation to see an ortho in 7-10 days if it wasn’t feeling better by then. carrie, well, carrie sprained her knee. sitting in the ski patrol hut after getting carted down the hill on a toboggan behind first a skier and then a snowmachine, i figured out that it had been about 6 years since i was last on downhill skis. it was absolutely exhilarating to go effortlessly down the hill and feel the wind and taste the snow flakes. i had forgotten how much fun it could be!
but then whamo. 7 hours into it and i fell hard. nary a skid until the moment i did a somersault down the hill. i laid there on the hill screaming, trying to figure out what had just happened while damon, elena, and andrew waited at the bottom on their snowboards. yes, three kids on boards – one of them on her Second day ever boarding – went down in front of me. here’s what i recall: i was zig-zagging down the hill, hit a bit of ice, lost control the slightest bit, then hit a “push pile” where snow gets piled from others schussing – or snowplowing – down the hill, and one ski tried going up the hill and the other down and suddenly i was airborne then tumbling. one ski popped off. the other – on the knee that is now sprained – didn’t. a random kid came whizzing down the hill and popped my ski off for me and i established that i could bend my knee and move all my parts and nothing was broken. phew.
ski patrol asked if i thought anything was broken or if i was ok to get up and keep going. like those two were my options: broken or keep skiing. i think i started crying, feeling in absolutely No Shape to stand, let alone ski!
so they brought a sled. then schussing schussing schussing we went down the hill. i had this fancy little cardboard splint that they wrapped my leg in, with duct tape and carpet pad. sure wish i had a photo of That, it was Hot. seriously. they recommended that i go straight to ER and get it x-rayed. we opted to go home. dan was on his way already as mom and dad had returned from da UP and were watching henry, so he was going to join us for night skiing. he picked me up in kris’ car and she then had ours to get herself and the kids back to mom and dad’s house. we went home, got a bite to eat, changed clothes, swiped mom’s crutches (she’s a nurse, she has things like crutches and shower chairs just laying around the house…), and decided to go in to the hospital to have it looked at. because i was going, and dan was going with me, i convinced him to have his shoulder looked at too.
so what happened to him? he was skiing the trees, and when he tried to get back on the groomed section, his ski caught on either a root or a push-pile and suddenly he was no longer moving forward but just moving Down, with all the momentum with which he’d formerly been moving forward.
the doc told me no weight bearing on my knee for 4-5 days, and do stairs on my butt. well… i only did stairs on my butt one time and decided that was rubbish. and yesterday i ditched the crutches bc henry was having too much fun with them once i’d put them down. does that mean i feel better? heck No. it means i’m stubborn and probably a little stupid.
