That Time I Didn't Break My Neck, But Barely

Hello readers! I return to you from skiing. I went to Utah, so there's no talk of polar vortexes. I enjoyed the trip but by all accounts it was something of a humdinger:

I didn't recover from altitude sickness until two days before I had to leave, hence why I haven't done anything online beyond feed my dragons on Flight Rising (I'll be responding to comments and stuff today). My mom said I needed more water which resulted in me having to pee about every 15 minutes for the first few hours of the day and not much more that I can tell though it probably saved me from serious muscle pain. Altitude sickness is the worst, you guys. The worst! You spend a kabillion dollars to fly across the country (after which the cost of lift tickets and everything else seems like no big deal) and all you want to do is sleep.

The snow was wonderful which meant the weather sucked. Fresh powder = snowing = cloudy, windy grossness which wouldn't be a problem except I have delicate princess skin especially when it's dry and the snowflakes feel like razors driving into my face. The last day was our only clear day, and sometimes I boggled that people actually went skiing. One day I called it quits when the wind pushed me sideways across the mountain--while I was standing at the top of the lift deciding where to go. The day before the snow was perfect... until temps above freezing and between one run and the next the entire mountain turned to ice. That night it snowed enough to cover everything again.

I had some spectacular non-injuries! I'll start from the top.

3) the final and least spectacular of my falls, which had the same source as all my others: one ski went a-wandering, this time without any wiggly boot action. I was (once again on a green) cruising along, my ski went into some powder and my face went "ploff" into a snow bank. What do I mean by no wiggly boot action? I've got small feet so finding ski boots wasn't easy--for a few years, my options were slightly too-big rentals or child's downhill racing boot. When I wandered into my usual ski shop and the guy said "try these!" I did. They actually came in a size smaller, but I could barely put my current boots on. "Too tiny!" I said. "Perfect!" said he, and for years, they were. Now there's wiggle in the heel of one boot. I've since fixed it with various mods, but after a half day of skiing it starts wiggling and I need to clamp it down further. I should have gotten the smaller size, but then I remember I could barely get my current boots on (and I need help if it's really cold because the plastic stiffens).

2) I'm cruising down a green run that gets you from one mountain to another, so it's busy and people are crazy, either going really slow (fine) or zooming between them. A speed demon nearly gets sandwiched between another skier and myself, and since I'm on the edge I'm like "hey! Yield to downhill!" and am treated to a look of sheer panic on her face when she realizes the unskilled skier can't turn with her alongside and I am, indeed, at the periphery of the run. I'm spared and speeding along myself after breaking from the pack, then my boot wiggles when my ski catches a groove. My legs go in directions they shouldn't and I tumble facefirst and come to a stop about forty feet from my poles and one ski. One of my gloves slides twenty feet downhill. A guy gathers up my things and spends so much time helping me up that I'm super-duper touched. My foot and ankle are in that tingly-numbness of pain that makes it hard to get my ski on and the guy practically holds me over the binding until I've got it. He grins, "and that's what we call a fire sale."

This was the most painful thing I did.

Impressive because....

3) I'm on a green run, minding my own business, when one ski wiggles. I try to bring it back, fail, and think "oh god! Must save my legs!" as images of my legs snapping off with skis still attached dance through my head. I fall and spin around and my back hits the ground hard enough for my helmet to bounce and the back of my head to register "damn girl, that helmet is HARD! Ow!"

Which prompts two thoughts. One, dang isn't the helmet supposed to save me from banging my head? Two, oh damn if my head hit the helmet that hard, what did my brain do to my skull!?

I lay there in a daze for a minute and a guy skis over and asks if I'm okay. "I... think so." "You think? Do you need ski patrol?" I consider. "No. My helmet's hard, that's all." He helps me up and I am super touched by the kindness of skiers, who (at least here) are always ready to help others out. I go to lunch with my mother where we decide I don't have a concussion, or not a serious one anyway. I have lunch and go on my way. Three hours after I bang my head I go into a lodge to use the restroom, go down the stairs* and each step jars me right to the top of my head (more than normal) and then my stomach does flips. While this is certainly due to too much lunch, I go "oh god, what if it is a concussion!?" and call mom. She tells me to call grandma. Grandma goes "oh god! Get to the clinic now!" I think this is overkill but whatever.

First Aid checks me for a concussion. Nope. But they do palpate my neck and ask where I feel pain. "Right there." She has someone double check and "right there" is in the same place. "That's not muscle, that's right over the C2, and since you reported pain in the same place... we want you to get a neck x-ray. Sometimes people fracture their necks and don't know until they get a CT scan years down the road, and the only reason I'm not calling an ambulance is because you've been active for three hours, you're wiggling your head around--stop that!--and you're not guarding."

Down I went to the ER because you can't have neck x-rays anymore, they have to be CT scans. Mom calls my grandparents who freak out, while I'm like "chill! I'm fine. Though if I did break my neck I could laugh and laugh about how I broke my neck skiing!" But seriously I didn't want the grandparents to know until after I could say nothing was wrong.

The Park City hospital, by the way, is the nicest little hospital I've ever seen. Everything was so quick, everyone was happy to talk to me, and while I was getting my CT apparently the doctor, a nurse, the receptionist, and a volunteer all visited my mother to ask if she needed anything or to get info.

Final diagnosis: minor whiplash and I would be sore in the morning.

I really wasn't and only needed a few of the extra strength ibuprofin and none of the muscle relaxants. Pulling a muscle in my calf during crash #2 was far, far more painful and even that just meant I limped around pathetically.

Oh yeah, and the world cup was going on while I was there, so I saw some incredibly talented people do incredible things and got tons and tons of free swag from all the companies with stands down at the main lodge.

*Silver Lake was designed by sadists. Who puts the bathrooms of a ski lodge, one of the busiest in the resort, downstairs!?