No, that is not it. Something quite spectacular and unfortunate happened at the family reunion.
For two days, Craig and Hayes and the uncles were having such a grand and glorious time on their mountain bikes. I got it in my head that I wanted to try it, too. After all, when am I going to have another opportunity like this?? There were brand new mountain bikes to rent, the ski lift is right outside the lodge door to ride up and then coast down the mountain, and Craig is available to give me a lesson. I announced to Craig that I wanted to try it out.
He was surprised and seemed excited and impressed that I was so daring. I didn't realize until later that he thought I understood that the only way down from the ski lift was a quite advanced trail. I did NOT understand this. I thought we would be gently riding down a gradual slope. There was an easy trail down the mountain, but it was closed for construction, and there were not markings, at least none that I noticed or paid attention to, about how difficult the trail was.
We rode up the ski lift and that was nice, a fifteen minute soar through the air with my best husband. When we got up to the top we got our bikes and then walked down a gravelly slope to where the trail started.
I quickly realized how out of my league I was. The very first switchback I stopped and walked the bike around, alarmed at how much I didn't know about switching gears and using the brakes. The brakes were quite touchy and different from my road bike.
About a third of a mile down the trail, Craig showed me how to get through a quite technical part of the trail - over a root, down an 18-inch drop, and then down an incline before he came to a stop and waited for me. I thought, "Okay, here we go," and made me way over the root, being careful to hit it square, and then through the drop. I knew I had to stop to avoid hitting Craig so I grabbed the brakes hard. The front wheel grabbed the dirt hard and stopped, the rear wheel came up and I went over the handlebars, slamming into the ground on my right shoulder.
Craig was there fast, brushing me off and sitting me up, telling me it was okay. As I sat up, I could feel the bones of my collarbone shift and I knew it was broken. I hate to ruin Craig's day, but I told him that it's broken, it's broken, and started to cry. I laid back down on the trail. Poor Craig. Poor, poor Craig. He didn't know what to do and didn't know how to get me off that mountain. He got on his bike and went for help as I laid back on the dirt and looked at the sky and the tops of the trees and cried and prayed. He was back four or five minutes later, though, and said that he couldn't leave me.
He took off his jersey and made a sling out of it for my arm and we started the walk back up to the top of the ski lift. We passed some hikers and they collected our bikes and brought them up for us. We were able to make it up and Craig managed to reach his dad and tell him I was hurt. His dad got ahold of ski patrol and they met us up at the top of the lift on a four by four.
Todd was up there too. I knew I'd be okay after that, seeing there were people there to help. Patrol had a makeshift sling and put a nonrebreather oxygen mask on me and decided that it would be okay if I went down the lift, which I was so grateful for, as I didn't think I could tolerate going down the mountain on their four by four.
Craig and the patrol guy and me rode down on the lift, passing everyone staring at me in all my injured glory. We passed Hayes and Connor, who had heard about it and come up to help. Later, I hear that Hayes asked Connor which was the quickest way down the mountain and Connor showed him and they got there before we arrived back down in time for him to see them load me up into Todd's car for the ride to the hospital.
Todd and Marion and Craig took me to Alta View Hospital's emergency room. We got checked in and I had an IV started but then had to wait a half hour for the doctor to see me and to get any pain meds, which was difficult. By that time it had been about two hours since I was injured and my shoulder HURT. A nurse finally came in and gave me some morphine, which made everything better.
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| I liked this shirt and they cut it off! Craig and I like to make fun of scissor happy EMTs and it really is true. |
We went back to the hotel and I greeted my kids. Poor Ellie had been alarmed. She had been with Grandma Marion when she got the call from Evan and been frightened by Grandma's "freak out". Grandma really knows how to get things done in an emergency, but often is quite insistent and loud about it.
I spent that night and the next day doped up on Lortab, which made me sick, sick, sick. Every time I got out of bed and on my feet I would start to feel dizzy and weak and sick and then I would throw up. It was awful. I threw up twice in the hotel bathroom as Craig and Ellie tried to get me ready to leave and then again in the car on the way down the canyon to go home. It was awful. We finally made it home and Dad, though Tonya's help, called me in some Tylenol #3, which I tolerated much better.
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| The bones keep shifting around, which doesn't hurt so much anymore, but is like fingernails on a chalkboard. I tell Craig that I'm one of the X men and my name is Bonecruncher. |
I'm in a bit of denial that this has really happened. No Hott Mamas weight lifting with Aneesa, no biking, no Gran Fondo next month, no swimming - FOR THE REST OF THE SUMMER. My summer is stretching out in front of me as one long blah.
But there are blessings that have come. I told this to Craig and he didn't believe it and made me count them. So here they are:
1. Craig has been so sweet and tender with me. As sweet and kind as a mother to her baby. He washes me and helps me dress and undress. He gets up in the night if I need my pills. He would lift my head from the pillow to help me drink. He has taken such good care of me.
2. Hayes was so solicitous and kind also. Lately our relationship was devolved into being difficult and bossy on my part and demanding and ungrateful on his part, but he has really tried to help me be comfortable and do as much as he can to help. On the mountain, I kept thinking what a shame it was that Hayes wasn't there, that this was his big moment and he was missing it.
3. All my kids have tried to help. Ellie always wants to help me. She is such a little mother. And Mac and Josh have realized that I can't give them "uppies" anymore and have stopped demanding them, as well as realizing that I just can't do so much anymore. It will be a good thing, I think, for Mac and Josh to become a bit more independent instead of trying to get their mom to do so much for them.
5. During that long night in the hotel room, the night after I got hurt, I was drifting in and out of sleep when I suddenly had a vivid dream. I was in the forest alone and suddenly a huge brown bear walked by. And it was Evan. I knew that. And I hadn't even been thinking of him, and there he was. He didn't say anything because bears can't talk, but he was there to be with me.
I hadn't really felt Evan's presence there on the mountain top, but I think that dream was a message to me that he had been with me and was aware of and concerned for me.
So that's it. The Great Collarbone Break. It's always been a marvel to me how nobody in our family has ever broken a bone. Six kids and no broken bones??!! Amazing. But no more.
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