'Tis better to have skied and lost...
Thursday morning started out as yet another awesome day of skiing, with "balmy" temperatures in the 20s, freshly groomed trails, and nobody but me and my ski instructor friends out on the ski hill. It was heaven! And so my ski instructor friends and I hit one of our favorite black diamond runs and had fun playing on it for awhile. About five minutes before we were expected to show up at the bell for our lesson assignments at 11:30 a.m., we decided to take that black diamond run one more time before we quit playing and went to work.
The instructor I was skiing with went first, and then I started down that run the same as I had the last several times. But this time a stray chunk of snow/ice that had escaped the groomer caught the edge of my left ski and twisted my leg around. I felt intense pain in my knee and knew I was going down. I observed every little movement as I spun around and hit the ground, as though it were in super slow motion. And then I was sliding down the hill. It was too steep there for me to stop, and with the pain in my left leg, I knew I could do absolutely nothing about it. And then I saw trees and realized that I was about to slide right off the edge of the slope into them where other instructors would have difficulty finding me. Miraculously, I slid to a stop right before I hit the trees and watched my left ski, which had popped off, continue sliding down the steep slope past me, unaffected by its brakes having deployed to prevent this.
I could tell right away that there was no chance I would be able to stand up again, given the pain in my knee. I also knew in that moment that my ski season had probably just ended. There was nobody else in sight, and all I could do was lie there on the snow, waiting for another instructor to come by and call ski patrol for me. Fortunately it didn't take that long, but when the ski patrol got to me, it turned out that I was still on the part of the slope that was too steep for them to bring their sled up to me. They had to slide a backboard under me and slide me on that down to the sled, and then I had my first ever sled ride off the ski hill.
When I got to the ski patrol building, they checked me over for injuries and rigged up a splint for my leg. It didn't take long for other ski instructors to start showing up to see what was going on. It's always a little embarrassing for a ski instructor to wipe out like that, and it was even more embarrassing to wipe out and not be able to get up from it. The other instructors, though, were just interested in how they could help out and were genuinely concerned for my well-being. They gathered up all my gear and made sure it was locked up in a locker. The ski patrollers at first commented that they might have to cut through my nice, expensive long underwear to look at my knee, but I could see how much it pained them to even think about destroying such expensive ski gear, and they decided that since it was not bleeding and there were no bones protruding, they could forgo that part of the examination.
And then it was time for me to go to the emergency room. The poor instructor with whom I was skiing and who had ridden to the ski hill with me was stuck driving me there. Apparently there were a lot of heart attacks, strokes, and other health problems that were more urgent than a knee injury coming into the ER, and it took several hours of sitting in the waiting room before they even got me into a bed. My ski instructor friend stayed with me, playing cribbage with me to distract me from my pain. She faithfully kept playing despite losing game after game after game. And then after eight hours, my husband came, and she went home. After twelve hours in the ER, I finally learned what I had suspected from the moment I felt my leg twist--I had damaged my ACL (the most common skiing injury) and will need surgery to have it repaired. What I hadn't suspected is that I had damaged it in a way that is extremely rare for adults but happens sometimes in children. For that reason, the orthopedic surgeon who came in to see me was not able to tell me much about when I will be having surgery or how the process will go. My case just "doesn't make sense" to him, so he said he would consult with other orthopedic surgeons and get back to me. So now I'm scheduled to go in to see a knee specialist on Christmas Eve and will hopefully get some idea of what's going to happen. In the meantime, I am housebound and unable to keep pain pills down. Ice packs have become my best friends. And I just have to keep telling myself, "'Tis better to have skied and lost than never to have skied at all."
The instructor I was skiing with went first, and then I started down that run the same as I had the last several times. But this time a stray chunk of snow/ice that had escaped the groomer caught the edge of my left ski and twisted my leg around. I felt intense pain in my knee and knew I was going down. I observed every little movement as I spun around and hit the ground, as though it were in super slow motion. And then I was sliding down the hill. It was too steep there for me to stop, and with the pain in my left leg, I knew I could do absolutely nothing about it. And then I saw trees and realized that I was about to slide right off the edge of the slope into them where other instructors would have difficulty finding me. Miraculously, I slid to a stop right before I hit the trees and watched my left ski, which had popped off, continue sliding down the steep slope past me, unaffected by its brakes having deployed to prevent this.
I could tell right away that there was no chance I would be able to stand up again, given the pain in my knee. I also knew in that moment that my ski season had probably just ended. There was nobody else in sight, and all I could do was lie there on the snow, waiting for another instructor to come by and call ski patrol for me. Fortunately it didn't take that long, but when the ski patrol got to me, it turned out that I was still on the part of the slope that was too steep for them to bring their sled up to me. They had to slide a backboard under me and slide me on that down to the sled, and then I had my first ever sled ride off the ski hill.
When I got to the ski patrol building, they checked me over for injuries and rigged up a splint for my leg. It didn't take long for other ski instructors to start showing up to see what was going on. It's always a little embarrassing for a ski instructor to wipe out like that, and it was even more embarrassing to wipe out and not be able to get up from it. The other instructors, though, were just interested in how they could help out and were genuinely concerned for my well-being. They gathered up all my gear and made sure it was locked up in a locker. The ski patrollers at first commented that they might have to cut through my nice, expensive long underwear to look at my knee, but I could see how much it pained them to even think about destroying such expensive ski gear, and they decided that since it was not bleeding and there were no bones protruding, they could forgo that part of the examination.
And then it was time for me to go to the emergency room. The poor instructor with whom I was skiing and who had ridden to the ski hill with me was stuck driving me there. Apparently there were a lot of heart attacks, strokes, and other health problems that were more urgent than a knee injury coming into the ER, and it took several hours of sitting in the waiting room before they even got me into a bed. My ski instructor friend stayed with me, playing cribbage with me to distract me from my pain. She faithfully kept playing despite losing game after game after game. And then after eight hours, my husband came, and she went home. After twelve hours in the ER, I finally learned what I had suspected from the moment I felt my leg twist--I had damaged my ACL (the most common skiing injury) and will need surgery to have it repaired. What I hadn't suspected is that I had damaged it in a way that is extremely rare for adults but happens sometimes in children. For that reason, the orthopedic surgeon who came in to see me was not able to tell me much about when I will be having surgery or how the process will go. My case just "doesn't make sense" to him, so he said he would consult with other orthopedic surgeons and get back to me. So now I'm scheduled to go in to see a knee specialist on Christmas Eve and will hopefully get some idea of what's going to happen. In the meantime, I am housebound and unable to keep pain pills down. Ice packs have become my best friends. And I just have to keep telling myself, "'Tis better to have skied and lost than never to have skied at all."