The other side of the knife

When I had my ACL surgery I was awake for just a minute when I was in the OR and I remember thinking it was so cool in there. Then when I started working in the OR I was stoked to see an ACL surgery and see how it worked. I've done mostly orthopedic surgeries and I love doing those. I like it because it's like a construction room. It's funny though how I sometimes feel like once we finish the surgery it's like, OK, they're better. As a tech I never have to see any of the recovery and I don't realize that nope, they're not fixed.
But I'm learning nore and more about it. So, that's the answer ...

Yes I had to have surgery.

 Turns out my Talus bone was broken and it was in about 5 different pieces. 

 

 I went in to see Dr. Drew VanBoerum and had an X-ray on a Mon, went in for a CT on Tues,

went back in on Wed and he'd looked at the CTs and decided that I did need surgery and his assistant came in and said how about tomorrow? I had to cancel / reschedule my end of the season river party up at my cabin but decided it's better now than in a week. So, the next morning my mom took me in and I was the first one. I knew the anesthesiologist, and Drew's PA and it was cool going in there knowing exactly what I he was going to do. I asked the nurse to take some pictures and she only took one. Lame! I wanted a whole play by play, but this is the best she got. Still looks pretty cool though. You can see the plate and the screws.

So, here I am, 10 days after surgery, getting really antsy. For the first few days I was pretty drugged up on Oxycodone so I didn't mind just hanging in bed and drifting in and out of sleeping, but that didn't do that great for my "system". So,  I've been cutting back and my leg feels better if it's elevated but I am just starting to get out. I've been getting out and about a little more now and my armpits are killing from the crutches and I can't be up for too long, but it's feeling much better. I have to be no weight bearing for 6 more weeks! But it'll be better in the long run and it'll work almost as good as new. I'm hoping anyway, but it'll be better than it would have been if I'd just gone on my trip, so I'm really glad Angela was persistent and got me to go see Drew. Anyway, if anyone wants to come watch a movie or go to one, I'm in! 

...I hate waiting!

Update on my physical status:

Doing much better than the last post. My head is healing nicely, still some scabs hanging on ( I have no idea how after 7 weeks they're still there, especially with my lack of will power not to pick them but they're still there). The scar is looking pretty good and I've gotten used to the comb-over from the left, and had my hair cut so it looks like it's supposed to go that way. My butt looks much better and my muscles were still giving me some problems but they're also doing much better. My ankle, well that's a different story that will come later.

Update on my mental status:


Kinda getting a little stir crazy not really being able to do anything. I did miss one river trip, but did get to go on my last one. My brother, Eric came and I really couldn't have done it without him.

He was really great at not letting me carry heavy, awkward things and I was really glad he came to be my muscles and also just that he got to explore the Canyon.

 

It was a really pretty trip and great weather. I didn't get to do a lot of the hikes but Eric would go on big long runs on some nights. I was really glad that he came. We had to spend an extra day in the Canyon and wait for a trip a day behind us to derig and Eric spent like 6 hours working on this cool sculpture thing, it was cool.

So, since then I've just been working on trying hard not to push it too much and I've been planning a big trip this fall. I've been planning this for a while and the last couple weeks and I've found and bought all my airfare for a great trip! 

I'm going to DC for a couple days, then to LONDON and I'll spend a few days with some people that have come on river trips. Then I'll have two weeks to go around Europe. I've got another hook up from the river in PARIS and I'm not quite sure where else I'll go on my way to AMSTERDAM to fly to KENYA. My aunt and uncle have a program called Kenya Keys that they started and I'll be spending three weeks there with my uncle and two other girls in the bush. Then I'll go to THAILAND for a month and be home by Christmas. I'm getting so psyched and I've got appointments for immunizations and I'm getting my packing list ready. Then ...

Last week I actually figured I could go biking. I rode down to the Farmer's Market last week and I've ridden up Emigration Canyon several times and it feels really good to be moving my body! I rode out to the mouth of the canyon the other day and I finally felt like I was starting to feel like myself again. My body felt fine while I was riding but clipping out of my pedals was a different story. I'd have to use my hand or just take my shoe off then take it off. That's fine, right? My friend, Angela that is finishing her residency in ER med, came biking with me and she kept encouraging me to get it looked at again and told me what could happen if it was broken and I didn't get it fixed, so I caved and made an appointment and guess what .... I've got a freakin broken ankle!  

My talus bone is fractured and I had a CT today and tomorrow he's going to read it and determine the next few months of my life. Either I've got to have surgery and that will make me stay home for sure or I'll have to wear a boot for who know how long and I'll maybe go depending on how easy it is to walk in ... who knows! Tomorrow, tomorrow, that'll determine the rest of my life!! Well, OK, that may be a little dramatic, but that's what it feels like. I'll let you know.

June Lake turns to misadventure ...

Where do I start .... My family has been having a great trip in June Lake, CA. Coulson couldn't make it and Jess's on his mission, so it's been Eric and Thayne and my parents and me and we've been having a great time! This place is amazing and we've done a bunch of fun stuff. We went biking at the Mammoth ski resort and it was really fun trying to keep up with my younger brothers.



The thing I've been wanting us all to do is go to Yosemite. I love that place and my brothers climb a little and I wanted to do a route with them. So I found this route I've done before called Munginella. This is a little hard to explain in non-climber terms, but when I did it before, I did it in 3 pitches, (a pitch is basically is a rope length). Normally when you do a multi-pitch route the leader climbs first, gets to the anchors or a good ledge or something to stop on. Then the second climber climbs up to the leader and they keep going up from there. So, with multi-pitch routes, each pitch could be about the full length of your rope since you're never come back down. But with a single pitch route, the leader gets to the top, hooks in to the anchors, then comes back down, thus doubling over the rope, so that a single-pitch route needs to be shorter so that the leader can get back to the ground. Eric and Thayne have climbed a little, but not a ton and they weren't feeling up for a multi-pitch route so I thought we'd just do the first pitch of Munginella, then call it at that. Since I had climbed it before I didn't even think about my rope not being long enough. Another blunder I had made was when I was packing to come, I'd put all my climbing stuff together, but I'd put my climbing helmet with my bike helmet and realized about an hour away from Yosemite that I'd left it at the condo. But admittedly I'm not super good about wearing a helmet when I climb and the route was only a 5.6 which is a route I can climb without my trouble.


So, we bush-wacked a little to get to the base of the wall, then we had to scramble up like 50 feet to get to the base of the route. My mom and dad came up because they wanted to watch us and I was way impressed that they made it up there. (That's Mama Shell in the picture)


So I was the first to go and I lead the route and it was some fun climbing.


I set the anchors and had Thayne start belaying me down. He's climbed a little but enough that I trust him and we'd gone over how to belay and how to let me back down but I didn't even think to tell him to watch for the rope, and I have never been good at tying knots in the end of my rope. No one I climb with really does and it just never even crossed my mind. Thayne was talking to everyone and was distracted and Eric noticed just a second too late that the rope was too short and it went through the belay device, which means that I was free-falling about 30 feet from the ground. It's funny because my first thought when there was no tension on the rope was "funny Thayne..." I thought he was letting just a little bit go to kinda scare me, but then it just never caught and I realized I was falling. I think I hit my heals on a little lip on the face and it flipped me upside down and I hit my whole lower back / butt area pretty bad and I don't know what else, but my brothers knew that if they didn't stop me at the belay ledge I would have kept going another 60 feet to the ground. Luckily they kinda tackled me and stopped me but I hit my head on a pretty sharp rock when I landed and instantly started bleeding. My dad ran down to get help and we put pressure on it while I tried to get my barrings.


So, to my embarrassment, the Search and Rescue Team came up. I kept trying to feel OK about getting down myself. I never blacked out so I thought I was pretty well off, but both my ankles were swelling up and my pelvis hurt pretty bad so I swallowed my pride and decided to do what Matt Stark -the main SAR guy in charge- suggested and get all bundled up and short lined out of there.


It was a pretty cool process. I have always loved knots and safety systems and doing swiftwater rescue and stuff like that. I didn't have the best view of what all was actually going on, it was pretty cool to see it all work and they were such a well-oiled team. It was funny because I knew one of the girls from Snowbird. She's on the patrol up there and I've climbed with her at the gym, it seems I always know someone where ever I go and although I was a little embarrassed to see her in my situation, it was cool to see a face I knew.


There were also a bunch of other rugged, manly faces I wanted to get to know, but didn't think that was the ideal situation to be picking up dudes with blood all over my face and hair.



They rigged me up and lowered me off the edge down the scrambly part that was pretty steep. This guy in the video (it will come later, the internet here is pretty lame), after he got situated, pulled me away from the cliff while they lowered us down.


At the bottom there were like 3 more people waiting with this sweet cart thing with one wheel on it, that made for a pretty nice ride down the mountain.


We were met by an ambulance that took me to a field where a helicopter was waiting .... that's right a helicopter. I tried to fight that but they wanted to do a CT scan and Matt assured me that I wanted someone with a little more experience with plastics to close up my head than they had at the clinic there. So they loaded me into the helicopter for a 45 min ride to Modesto.


I was pretty bummed I didn't get to at least see how cool it was to fly over Half Dome and through the Valley. How sweet would that have been! The flight nurse tried to sit me up a little to no avail, but she did send me pictures of the flight in. She was nice. She gave me morphine, like I said, she was nice. My hips were getting pretty sore from lying flat on them the whole time.

So, in Modesto, they did X-rays of my head, neck pelvis and both ankles and no broken bones! It's pretty much a miracle! Including my skull! Which you can see in some of the pictures! My mom doesn't think I should put some of these pictures on here, but maybe it's my missing the OR that makes me think these are cool, and having someone take a picture and show me was the only way I could see it, so I'll put some of the more graphic ones at the end and you can choose to not look if you don't want to, but I think they're pretty cool. I had a PA for a plastics guy sew up my head and it took forever but she did a great job. She did a layer of stitches under a layer of staples and so I am now the proud holder of the most staples / stitches of all my brothers! With four younger, wild, active brothers, that's saying a lot! Eric and Jess already have scars just back in their hair lines but mine beats them hands down. Mine is pretty much along my whole part. Luckily they didn't have to shave my head or anything, but a lot of hair was cut by the rock and my mom said a bunch fell off in her hands when she first put pressure on it. So, that's sad, I'm going to have to part my hair on the other side. That'll ruin my whole look!

If you're ready for it, here's the finished look.

All (well, not all) the goop around it is KY. They say that breaks down the proteins so it's easier to wash out the clots and stuff. I'm so lucky to be on this trip with my family. I'm getting such great service! My mom gave me a bath today and washed my hair and my brothers are carrying me everywhere and making me food (when I don't feel like I'm going to barf) and rubbing my back. I'm thinking I may have to try this more often! Absolutely just kidding. I realized in the helicopter that this happened almost exactly 10 years after I broke my back on a family trip. (If you don't know that story check it out) So, in 10 years in August I will lock myself in my house and not go anywhere with my family!

That being said, I'm not going to stop living my life. Much to my dad's chagrin (who almost sold all my gear for like $20 to this other couple that climbed up and got it all after we left) I'm not going to stop climbing. I will be adamant about wearing a helmet, even on a 5.6 I've done before, and I will always tie a knot in the end of my rope. Had this happened biking or hiking or something, I don't think it would change people's attitude of that, but I think that since people already think climbing is dangerous this gives it such a bad reputation. But I've always said, and I still believe that climbing is safe. It's a great sport that requires a lot of mental dedication and trust in your gear, yourself and your belayer. I don't know of any other sport that is as mental as climbing and I love that about it. There were a lot of dumb factors that went into this accident and I don't blame Thayne! I'm the one that knows what's going on and I should have told him to look for the half way mark on the rope and I should have tied a knot and worn a helmet. I feel so bad for him because I know he's going to be scarred for life and if it had been worse, he'd never get over it. But he's taken such great care of me and I am really bummed to be giving climbing a bad image.

So, I've got 10 days to be OK to go on a river trip, and I'm thinking I can pull it off. Lots of beauty rest in this great mountain air and I'll be fine in no time! Sorry if this freaked anyone out! I'm doing fine and my family is doing great and we're ready to enjoy the rest of the vacation here! (Or, I'll learn about it from stories and pictures, but that's almost good enough)

Point is, climbing is safe and I still love it. I don't mean to be adding a high adventure risk to my life, but I just love it ... still.

Here's some of the gruesome photos. Don't look if you can turn your eyes away....


It's looked a little better...


The funny thing about this is that the scratches on the front are from my cousin's rowdy dog that I took for a walk a couple days before the trip and he attacked some cat and through chasing him and hitting him he clawed me a little.



This is the first picture they took that actually convinced me that I probably shouldn't walk down and I'd let them bring the whole SAR team.

The helicopter pilot took these when he dropped me off and sent them to me.


Notice the bald spot in the front and how thick the skin is, and how not broken my skull is!

Summer stinks!

Well, it's time. I NEED to catch up. Whenever I have time (and by that I mean off the river and on my computer which is about 4 hours every 2 weeks .... OK it's more than that, I've always got it on when I'm at home... but it's usually for music or Hulu) I feel my blog breathing down my neck reminding me that I haven't posted forever so here goes. I'll try to be brief.

I've had an amazing few months! I've been able to do some great stuff during and in between my river trips. Every year the Grand Canyon River Guide Association sends a trip down the river called the Guide Training Seminar. Western sends 2 guides every year on it and it's a great chance to meet other guides and they bring a Geologist
(Peter Hontoon who I had a pretty big crush on... he'd always say things like "now this is some pretty sexy stuff!" and "this is what really gets me going!") and a botanist and a bunch of other people that I learned TONS from. It was great.
And one of the best parts is it was a really wet winter and a late spring so there were tons of wild flowers, including the Brittlebush.
It made the whole lower half of the canyon super yellow and it was so beautiful!!
And these are my favorite! They're called Ocotillo and to see them that green with the flower still on was a dream!

Then I had two weeks off to play. Which sounds great, except that other people who I'd like to play with still do have real jobs and not everyone can just get out to play. I still was able to get in some good powder days (it was weird going from hot Grand Canyon to really good powder days) and a little bit of touring up on the Twin Peaks, and then the next day I went climbing in Little Cottonwood, I love that canyon!
At the end of that break I did a triathlon with some people from St. Mark's.


We had all signed up for it and I did like 2 bike rides, swam once and ran a couple times, and luckily it was just a sprint and I felt pretty good about it. My time was 1:31 and I almost died in the pool (which ironically I was the least worried about) but it was pretty fun to do.


Then the first trip of the year was great. So good to be down there when it's not super hot. And it was fun bc my old roomie, Erika who used to guide down here got to come as extra crew.


And it was great bc now the upper half of the canyon was on fire with Brittlebush

which incidentally I found out I'm somewhat allergic to and it took every ounce of will power I've got to not scratch my eyeballs out of my head!


I finally got a new camera after my lens broke on the Hell's Canyon trip last year and it has a great panoramic setting that if you can't tell, I'm pretty in love with it. Here's Havasu and Redwall


So, after that trip I had another week off and as per usual, I'd tried to plan a trip to Yosemite but it was bad timing for everyone else, so my friends, Kristina, Jason Tea and I threw together a trip to the White Rim. It's a trail that goes around the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands. It's the doted line around the edge.
It's about 100 miles long and you bring a support vehicle and you camp for 1-3 nights. Since we didn't have a permit we had to go in that morning and get some cancellations. We took time to go to Mesa Arch, so we weren't first in line but it was worth it to get this amazing shot. If only we were getting married we'd be in luck for our engagements.

So, after getting turned down by a couple to share their campsite, even after Kristina asked so nicely if they wanted to have some new best friends, we had to do a little bit random of a route but it turned out great. We went down the Schaffer Trail

to Musselman Arch,

then back up. It was about 16 miles, then down the Mineral Bottom trail on the other side.

until we got to our great first night's camp.
But let me back up and say a few words. Did you really look at that photo of the Schaffer Trail? It is ridiculously steep and it was great going down but I almost died going up and Kristina and Jason had no problem with it. I was pretty unmotivated after that and when we got to the 'hard scrabble' hill I was more then happy to volunteer as a spotter for Jason while he was driving his mom's Jeep.

Kristina plugged away and did great though. It was super steep and rocky in some places. I'd only been on a mtn bike once in the last year or so and .... blah blah blah, excuses, excuses. I was (am) out of shape. That's the bottom line.

But the next day I had an awakening experience. We all took turns driving the car and while I was driving I was listening to the song Life for Rent by Dido, and it says (are you ready? this is going to be deep...) " If my life is for rent and I don't look to buy, then I deserve nothing more than I get 'cause nothing I have is truly mine". And I realized that that is so important in life. If you're only willing to put in the bare minimum then you're only going to get the minimum back. If I'm a sissy and woss out of the hill before really even trying then really I shouldn't get to do the fun downhill (but in this situation that doesn't really work bc we had the car and could just shuttle up the hills). Oh, this isn't sounding nearly as earth shattering as it was to me at the time. And it's funny coming from me who happily doesn't have a mortgage and doesn't even pay rent for that matter since all my stuff is at my parent's for the summer. But maybe that's what I mean. I'm paying for experiences of life with my time and effort and I do want to make to effort to do all that I can to soak every drop of life out of this existence! .... wow is that making sense to anyone? It still really didn't help my quads work any better going up Murphy's Hogback but I think I had a little better attitude about it and my brain wasn't being quite so whiny.

We got some great riding in and some great views



There were tons of wildflower out that I was kicking myself for not having my plant book with me to identify, and a lot of cactus were blooming too.




That night it was super windy and I actually resorted to sleeping in the toilet. Well, not really the toilet but the port-a-potty. It actually didn't smell too bad, but the wind going through there was stirring up the chemical that they use to keep the smell down and I started coughing and decided maybe it wasn't such a great idea, but stayed in just with the door propped open a little. Seeing camp the next morning and the sand drifts that were filling in Jason and Kristina's eyes I still felt good about my decision.

The next day was more great riding with more great views and we came back around the Schaffer side and it was really fun. Every time I get on a bike I remember how much I love it and wish I had more time for it. On my way out of town when I was leaving Moab I did the Klondike Bluffs trail and that's a great ride too. The view from the top is amazing looking down at the Fiery Furnace.



OK, so that's all I've got time for right now. I have had a couple amazing days in between trips that I have spent down at our warehouse totally alone and it's been the first time in 7 ish weeks that I've spent more than half a day by myself and it's been a dream! I thought I'd get farther, and I'm sad that this always turns out to just be a trip log. I'd like to include a little more thought into it, but oh well, it's what it is. I'm leaving tomorrow for my first trip as a boatman. I've driven the whole Canyon a couple times but this will be the first time that it's my own boat and it's all my responsibility and I'm a little nervous but really excited, so I better get some sleep. I'll try not to be a stranger. I do have a full week off after this! so hopefully I'll make some more time. Good night!