The metal rod in my left thigh will stand the test of time better than anything else in my body. It simply won’t let me forget December 4, 2016.
And maybe I shouldn’t. After all, I learned a lot about myself during that period of my life. And perhaps even came out of it with a pretty good story.
The injury
I was a fresh transplant to the valley with a full-time remote gig, and wanted to pay my dues to the local mountain by becoming a part-time snowboard instructor in Beaver Creek. I had just completed my last day of training, when my fiancée joined me for a closing time victory lap.
As we zoomed down the hill, I spotted a section of trees that had just opened, and it was all too tempting.
I went into my first tree run of the season with too much speed, and clipped a log that had been poking out from under the thin snow. This pushed my direction off by only a few degrees, just enough to redirect me into the nearest tree.
I was still standing after the impact, hugging the tree, thinking about hot tubs and massages in my near future … I was still under the impression that I could ride away from this.
But when I pushed off the tree with my arms, I learned my upper left leg was no longer communicating with the rest of my leg. I could move my hip, but nothing below it.
I fell to the ground and started shouting for help, and my fiancée came right over. We needed ski patrol, but the mountain was closing and both our phones were dead. “I have to go to the bottom and get them,” she said as she got up, assessed the location and pointed her board down the hill.
About 15 minutes later, a team of red jackets, and one yellow jacket, came into the woods. Upon arrival, they told me she had found them as they were doing their final sweeps. They loaded me on a toboggan and got me off the hill as the sun was setting. I remember it being dark outside when the ambulance doors closed.
The ride to Vail Health was a blur of emotions. On the outside, I was answering questions and even cracking jokes. On the inside, I was cursing myself with every “what if,” “why,” and “how could you?” The internal struggle had already begun.
X-rays later determined I had fractured my left femur. The longest and strongest bone in my body had a crack right in the middle, which, given the circumstances, is actually better than it sounds (things can get more complicated the closer they are to the knee or hip).
But perhaps the more important factor playing to my outcome was who was working that night. The last faces I saw that evening were Dr. Richard Cunningham, surgeon for Vail-Summit Orthopaedics and Physician for U.S. Ski and Snowboard, and his team of nurses and anesthesiologists. I could not imagine a better sight to see, before going under.
The recovery
“The strangest part of your accident was it seemed like you were not in any pain. There was no pain,” Cunningham recalled in my first follow-up meeting.
He was right, whether it be a high pain tolerance or just low-level shock, I did not writhe all the way from the tree to the surgery table. But when I woke up the next morning, the stubborn pressure of a metal rod forcing its placement downwards against my knee and upwards against my hip, brought forth a very painful reality.
There were lots of thoughts racing through my head as I stared out my hospital room window, drugged up on that dark, snowy morning. I wasn’t ready to feel sorry for myself yet, so instead I felt sorry for her: The person who got me out of that forest and then put framed photos next to my hospital bed before being sent home on a snowy night; the person who said “yes” to someone who is now, by some misguided sense of medical math, a lesser deal; the person who is still counting on me for a very special first dance in October.
And then, I felt sorry for them: The brothers and friends who had just bought tickets to Europe in March; the people who let this idiot convince them to help chase his Alps dream under the guise of a bachelor party; the people I would be calling that morning with news of cancellation.
All these people would go on to show that they had more faith in me than I did. “Well, you better f—— heal up quick,” one brother said, summing up the overall feedback.
The search for a physical therapist began. The first one I went to estimated five months before getting back on a board. That wasn’t going to cut it, so I kept looking. My search ended with Mary Miller Witt, who runs Competitive Edge Physical Therapy & Fitness out of a home gym in Eagle.
Some locals may know Witt as the supermom of an esteemed military family, some might even know her as the lady who lost her leg to cancer in her 20s, and now uses old prosthetic legs as Halloween decorations. I know Witt as the first physical therapist who didn’t look at me like I was crazy when I shared my goal to go snowboarding in another country in less than three months. Our senses of humor aligned.
We got to work right away as repetition became ritual, and exercise my new religion. Once I could bear weight, I added to it. Pound by pound, I counted gains towards recovery against days left on the calendar.
Within six weeks, I took my first unassisted steps. Once I could walk, I started going to the Avon Rec Center every morning right as it opened (and right as the kid’s aquatics area was at its cleanest) to get into the lazy river and kick, walk and eventually run against the tide.
One week before takeoff, both Witt and Cunningham had given me the green light. But the green came with a shade of yellow.
“I think you’re ready,” Witt said. “But I want you to repeat after me: ‘No jumps.’”
The redemption
88 days after hugging that tree, I was strapping into my board atop the Alps.
I remember the endless, dramatic scenery surrounding Stubai Glacier cooling my nerves before pointing my board down the hill. As I gained speed I, with slight hesitation, dug my toeside edge into the snow and made my first turn since December. When I connected the heelside turn, the celebration began.
With my crew by my side, we hooted and hollered our way down to aprés. Not looking to push it any further and risk my bigger plans down the road, I only took one lap that day, and then another two on a powder day. Three total laps for the entire trip, but they were most satisfying.
I returned to the States with a renewed sense of hope that I could get to 100%, and maybe more. By the next season, I had regained the opportunity to teach snowboarding, this time in Vail, where I taught from 2017-2021.
As for that fiancée, she is now my wife. And as for that first dance — it was, admittedly, a shoddy attempt at a waltz, not because of the injury but of my lacking talent in ballroom dancing. The dance was followed shortly after by circle pits to Misfits covers, which were much more our speed.
Later, during our honeymoon in Barcelona, Spain, I decided to commemorate my injury, recovery and redemption with a tattoo of Wolverine from X-Men over my scars. Because … metal.
Full Article via the Vail Daily: Fracture Friday: The injury, the recovery and the redemption