Story? Well my long time friend was flying up from California to visit me. He loves to snowboard, so I figured why not take him to the mountains? The plan was to go to Lake Louise, the ski resort, and ski/board for the day. Then we were to return to Banff to take a dive into the hot springs, and then end the evening off with a delicious dinner. The next day we were to skate on lake Louise as well...
So...sadly, the majority of that did not happen.
6:00AM
I woke up and got ready to to leave Calgary for lake Louise. It's about a 2.5hr drive out of town. The sun was not up yet, in fact the moon was HUGE!
I rented a car and headed for the mountains. I'm not going to lie, I had a bad feeling about this trip. It was either I was going to die on the roads, or die on the hill.
8:20AM
We made it to the resort alive. I got in line to rent my equipment and get my lift ticket. I filled out my form that asked for my weight, height, etc. And then off the guys at the rental place went to get me boots, poles, ski's etc. They never asked me to step into my ski's on-site. They just set the bindings, gave me the skis, and pointed me to the door.
9:20AM
I made my way up on the chair lift. Everyone was going onto one chairlift because the gondola was broken. A huge line, yes. Once at the top, I got off the chair lift with no issues and went down the hill for the first time. This chair lift only took us up to the middle of the mountain. We went down the easiest run.
I wiped-out once, but slowly I remembered how to control my speed and didn't fall again. I successfully made it to the bottom.
10:40AM
Went up the mountain again, did the same run and didn't wipe out at all!
11:45AM
The line up for the chairlift got longer and longer. More and more people started arriving. One of my friends, Graham, said that he would wait for me at the top of the hill. I finally got to the top and then this is where things started to get bad. Graham was really good at skiing, he used to even compete competitively in competitions, with prizes and other people! (You like that sentence OH, DN, and SC?) Anyways, he convinced my friend and I to take another chair lift to the top of the mountain. In belief that here were still be beginner runs, we went with him. Only to find out at the top that there were no green runs down the front of the mountain.
With no where to go, we went down one of the blue runs. About 2 mins into it, we come across this steep area, that does not look promising. As I go down it on a diagonal, my weight shifts to the back of my skis. I begin to gain speed and lose balance. As the snow up here is no longer groomed, we tend to get a lot of bumps. I go over one of those bumps then BAM, I hear a pop (my acl?). My right ski jabs into the snow. As I start to tumble, my right ski still remains in the snow and before you know it I'm facing the mountain and my leg is twisted around me. At this point I can't reach my ski to dislodge my boot. Apparently in situations like this, my ski should have dislodged from my boot, but it didn't...which then resulted in this twist.
I wince in pain, as Graham ski's down town me to help me out. I'm determined to make it to the bottom of this hill. I didn't want to be late to meet my friends at 12:30 for lunch and it was already 12:10.
I didn't know how far I was from the bottom. I wiped out at the red circle with the yellow X and had to make it down to the red circle with the orange X. As tears stream down my face, I convince myself I've been through worse and can continue down this hill until I get to an easier run, where I can swap into a green run. I go down the hill, balancing all my weight on my left foot. At this point there's some pain, but I could still manipulate my leg without hurting it. I manage to get down to the one run I was used to going on, and slowly increased the speed of my skiing, as I knew I couldn't stay on my leg for too much longer.
12:58PM
Reaching the bottom of the hill at, I start heading towards my friends who have already started eating without me. I start to limp over to the cabin for lunch. I told myself I was going to sit and relax for a bit. And if the pain persisted after lunch, I would go to the first aid tent. There was this slope at the entrance of the cabin. To others it was slightly slippery, to me it was death. All my friends walked a head of me. As I took one step with my right leg from the higher grounds to the lower, my right leg caved and my knee shot up towards the medial portion of my body. At that point I knew it was bad news bears. I was down and unlike before, I could not get up. As I sat on the ground tearing up and wincing in pain, randoms started to flock towards me and ask if I was alright. Unable to speak, I sat there for a minute until my friends finally realized I was hidden by the heard of people tending to someone on the ground. My friends carried me to the first aid tent where they then told me I should go to the closest hospital in Banff.
This picture was taken on my way out. I used the poles as crutches.
1:30PM
I headed to the hospital. Graham drove my car rental, as I was definitely unable to do so. Also I was starving! Then the people in the emergency room told me that I wasn't able to eat until I had my X-ray.
4:14PM
So I finally saw the doctor. Because my knee was so swollen, he couldn't really make a proper diagnosis. His prognosis was that I partially tore my medial collateral ligament - still attached though, and I either partially or completely tore my anterior cruciate ligament. If they were completely torn, then... well I'd require reconstructive surgery. Which would set me back for about a year until I start seeing a fully recovery. Unfortunately...as people say, knee injuries never heal properly or forever.
5:05PM
I leave the hospital with a brace and some T3s. Told that I need to see a specialist when I get back to Calgary, and start with physio...that put a damper in my weekend.
No longer able to walk quickly, salsa dance, attend fitness classes, stand for prolonged periods of time...this definitely has be depressed. What I would give to be able to do a basic salsa. No more snowshoeing, no more hiking, nothing! Can someone please tell me what the silver lining on this situation is? So needless to say, plans were ruined. I was not able to attend the hot springs, go dancing at night, go skating, or properly show my Californian friend around properly.
We did still go to lake Louise and check-out the ice sculptures which were still there from the competition there earlier in the season.
It was taunting to see people skating around without me... *sigh*
We drove back to Calgary, returned the car, had dinner and then finished the night off at the casino. We played Craps. I helped my friends (4 guys) win over $600 combined. I don't understand the game, but I think I was doing well because I rolled the dice for over 30mins, and they kept getting money :) The boys also bought me flowers to say thanks for winning them cash and to get well soon.
Final thought:
Having a busted knee sucks. Carpe Diem everyone...appreciate your legs. You never know if something like this will happen to you.
