The Pursuit of the Trifecta and the Importance of Helmets

Before I delve into the meaning of the title, first allow me to back up to Tuesday, January 13th.  On this particular day, my new job was AWESOME!!!

As you know, I work as a physical therapist for the school district which means that most of the kids I treat have a disability of some sort.  I was invited (or maybe I invited myself... it's still unclear) to an ADAPTIVE SKI DAY at Heavenly with the adapted PE teachers from my district.  These kids with disabilities got a free ski lesson!  How amazing is that?  And I got to ski for work!!!  So awesome.

My co-workers and I... notice my pretty black helmet?  

 Some of the kids can stand so they skied with instructors guiding them.  Others can't, so they used Heavenly's new sit ski and two instructors helped them.  It was pretty awesome. 

My view from work. 

There are 3 more days of adaptive skiing planned for this year.  I'm definitely planning to help out with a few more!  So grateful for opportunities like these!

Ok, but let's get back to the real topic of this blog... the pursuit of the trifecta.

So, Mike went away for the weekend to Wyoming to go skiing.  Wyoming was actually getting snow unlike Tahoe.  So, I was home alone for the 3 day holiday weekend.  I decided to make big plans for myself so I wouldn't be jealous of all the fun he was having skiing powder.  

I tentatively planned to go paddleboarding, skiing, and mountain biking in 1 day -- the TRIFECTA!

Saturday morning I woke up feeling a little "under the weather."  I was angry.  

I looked at the webcams and beautiful Lake Tahoe was glassy and calm.  The sun was rising and birds were flying and I didn't have the energy to get out of bed.  I had arranged for a friend to join me paddleboarding (you know, for company and for safety reasons.  The water is pretty chilly after all).  So, reluctantly I called her and canceled the paddleboarding.  

But, we decided to meet up later in the day to do a little snowshoeing.  I was pretty excited about this because I just bought "new-to-me" snowshoes and I wanted to try them out. We picked a place, packed a lunch and headed out with our dogs in tow.  

There was NO WHERE to park at the trailhead.  Seriously.  Not a single parking spot. And other cars kept circling around, just waiting on a car to leave.  We scratched those plans and ended up going on a nice leisurely walk with the pups in a much more desolate area with drastically less tourists around.  

Beautiful Lily Lake

Zater walking along the river...
right before a big waterfall. 

Amy and Soze

Beautiful, partially frozen falls. 

Sunday morning I woke up feeling much better (thanks to 1000mg of Vitamin C and 100mg of Zinc).  It was not a good day for paddleboarding though because the winds had picked up (stupid-always-windy-Tahoe).  I had plans to meet some friends to go mountain biking at noon but I woke up at 7:00 and there were several hours to kill before I had to head down to South Lake.  

So, I decided to go skiing at Heavenly.  

Just a few runs because I knew the snow conditions weren't going to be great. 

Just enough to warm up my legs a bit. 

Well, I rode the lift up and quickly saw that the trail conditions were horrible.  Where they groom the trails at night, they kick up ice chunks that sit on the surface of the snow.  Also known as "death cookies."  

"Death Cookie: 

An American term for lumps of ice found on the surface, or just under it. 

Sometimes you hit them and they move out of your way.

Sometimes they are firmly attached, leading you to be moved out of your ski."

I decided at the top of the lift that it just wasn't a good day for skiing so I would "just do that one run and call it a day."  

On the way down, I passed some small kids... (this becomes important information).

A little further down, I hit a death cookie... ejected from both skis... and bounced along the surface of the snow.  Fantastic (sarcasm)!!!

Visions of Heavenly Ski Patrol and Barton Memorial Hospital ER flashed through my head.  Then, I realized I was ok.  I sat up (in the middle of the ski trail - a horrible place to be), and took a few minutes to "alert and orient" myself.  

Do you know your name?  Yes.

Do you know where you are?  Yes. 

Do you know what day it is?  Yes. 

Do you know what happened?  Yes... vividly!

I was A&O x 4 but I still knew I took a hard fall.  I sat in the trail saying a few four letter words (out loud) when those kids I passed earlier skied by me!  So, I knew for certain that I didn't lose consciousness!  After a few more seconds of gathering my wits, I knew I had to get out of the trail.  I stood up, hiked back UP the hill ~100 ft. to get my skis and began making sure I had all of my equipment.

I couldn't find my goggles.  

I felt around my helmet... they weren't there. 

I looked on the trail... they weren't there. 

It took a couple of minutes for me to realize they had been ripped off my helmet and were around my neck.  Cool! (sarcasm again).  

With everything accounted for and nothing broken (body or equipment), I clipped into my skis, finished the run, and drove myself home.  

AND THEN WENT MOUNTAIN BIKING!  

Probably not my smartest moment.

I am well aware of second impact syndrome.  At that time I was only speculating that I might have a mild concussion from my fall.  I wasn't sure if I had a concussion. So, I decided to go biking.  I wanted to be around people who could tell me if I was acting weird and needed to get checked out!  (Seriously... that was my justification for going). 

The bike ride was fine... until the top.  As my heart rate increased, my symptoms increased so by the time we neared the top of the mountain, I was dizzy, mildly nauseous, my ears were ringing, and I was seeing spots out of my right eye.  SWEET (hopefully you're picking up on the sarcasm)! 

But lets see the positive: after a few minutes rest, I felt fine!

Happy doggy at the top!

Thanks again friends for riding with the concussed!

On the way down I felt great.  No symptoms.  Nothing. I passed a friend of ours who is a nurse at Barton and told him what happened... he agreed it sounded like a concussion and told me he would send me some of the latest research re: what to do after a concussion.  His wife was home with their baby and she had been texting me about possibly mountain biking later that afternoon.  I felt good, but not good enough to ride again so instead I offered to watch their baby for a few hours while she rode with her husband.  

Luckily I felt fine the whole time I was with their child! And I knew they weren't far away and could be home quickly if necessary.  

This is where I should have gone home and rested for the rest of the day.  Instead, I went home and cleaned my bike, showered, and went to church.  This might be the only time I will say these words: going to church was a BAD idea.  I love the church we've been attending and I hate missing.  It's like a concert.  The praise band is loud.  There are guitars, pianos, DRUMS!  And they were REALLY praisin' that night.  I wanted to ask them to keep down!  I wanted to leave, but didn't want to leave... so I just stared at the carpet to reduce the visual stimulation and hoped that people would think I was praying or something.  

Monday was a holiday.  Praise Jesus for MLK day!  Thanks MLK for having a dream!  And thank you to whoever made it a national holiday!  There was NO way I was going to work.

Originally, I had big plans for Monday... get a haircut... wash the car... clean the house... do ~5 loads of laundry.. go grocery shopping.. write a blog... bathe the dog, etc.  

That was ambitious and I got none of it done.  Instead, I woke up feeling like I was 90 years old.  Looking left or right involved turning my entire body because my neck was "out of order."  I would instinctively lift my left arm to do something & then let out a string of profanities as I lowered it back down (when did I injure my left shoulder???? - I don't remember that part of the fall).   Going from sitting to standing made my head throb and the room spin.  Other than that I was fine!

All I wanted to do was sit in darkness.  I know that's not really what you're supposed to do anymore after a concussion... new research is indicating that you recover better if you do certain exercises to retrain your brain.  Monday though, no brain activity was happening.  It was all I could do to get through 1 load of laundry and I only attempted that because I needed clean clothes for work!

Tuesday was much better.  I still decided to stay home from work and I'm SO glad I did.  Mike was still out of town and the house was quiet which I needed!  Wednesday I went back to work.  I took it easy but still came home with a headache and had to rest for a few hours in darkness.  Thursday was better than Wednesday and so on.  Everyday showed noticeable improvements.  I'm still taking fish oil, doing some brain retraining exercises and trying to take it easy, but I'm definitely feeling better!

I had no idea until a couple of days later, that I had even cracked my helmet.  When I finally got around to looking at it, it was in worse shape than I thought.  

Little crack in the foam. 

Goggles ripped off. 

And the buckle of the goggles left an imprint.

Big crack #1 - held together by the sticker.

Big crack #2

Big crack #3

That space isn't supposed to be there. 

I was very lucky.  

And now for my PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

Many people ski without helmets (also known as: dome protectors, noggin' savers, brain buckets, and head armor).  DON'T DO IT!  Do NOT ski without a helmet.  I am a cautious skier.  I don't want to go fast.  I want to ski slowly and in control!  I don't race.  I don't go off jumps.  I like to keep my skis firmly planted in the snow.  Yet, accidents happen.  Don't be stupid.  Wear a helmet.  And wear it correctly!  Don't be this guy: 

And if you see this guy (or someone like him), TELL THEM THEIR HELMET IS ON BACKWARDS!And anytime you fall, check your helmet for cracks!  And if it's cracked, GET A NEW ONE!  And don't go skiing in jeans (sorry, this doesn't relate to helmets or concussions but it needs to be said).  And don't go mountain biking after a hard fall!  That's just stupid and could end badly.  This concludes my public service announcement (and my really long blog post). Thank you. 

As promised...

.... this blog begins with the sledding videos I talked about in the last post.  Hope you enjoy them as much as I do!  There's a chance that you might watch them and think... "yeah, that's not that funny."

 If that's true then, "you had to be there".  We had a blast!

HA!  Let's try that again... 

Much better.  Now... let's go at the same time (sort of). 

Mike: I've got an idea. 

Me: Oh yeah?  What is it?

Mike: You hold my feet and we'll go down together. 

Me: AWESOME!  Let's do it.  

You can't really tell in the video, but more body mass = faster sledding speeds!

As a side note: Zater hates it when we go tubing.  He barked.  A LOT.  And he nipped at us the whole way down.  He's not a fan.  But, running back and forth up the hill totally wore him out and he slept the rest of the day so I'd call that a success! 

Since the sledding/tubing adventure, we've had a few more adventures.

Mike's sister and her boyfriend came into town on Wednesday.  We really only saw them in the evenings but it was great to have dinner together and catch up.  They just spent several days driving across the country (which I'm super jealous of all the cool places they visited) and they now they are in Hawaii... their new permanent home.  I could not be more excited for them and all the adventures they are sure to have. We are also excited to have another reason to go back to Hawaii!!!!  

Yesterday we went backcountry skiing in North Lake.  We skinned up Castle Peak with a couple other friends. 

The boys. 

The 1 mountain in the distance getting ALL the sun!!!

Still beautiful.. even with all the clouds. 

Castle Peak in the background. 

Looking back toward Andesite Peak. 

The clouds are parting a little bit! 

Resting my weary feet while I wait on the SUN!

At the top, I don't think any of us (especially me) was excited about skiing down.  But, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  The sun warmed the snow a little so the turns were decently soft. Once back at the truck, Mike and I ate our soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and then promptly decided to go to the Bridgetender restaurant in Tahoe City for waffle fries and beer!  Thanks SO much boys for letting this GIRL tag along!!!  

Saturday night I spent with my good old friends from Barton.  Oh, how I miss them!   They really might be the best group of people.  Ever.  We laughed... and ate... and they still include me in their outings even though I no longer work there and I can't tell you how awesome that is!  I still feel like part of their team (I just don't have to go to staff meetings anymore).  

Sunday morning Mike made this southern girl PROUD.  He made biscuits and gravy, hash browns, eggs and bacon for breakfast.  YUM!  Our delicious breakfast fueled us for a few turns at Heavenly with a dear friend of mine who I've never had the chance to ski with (until today of course).  After a couple hours of skiing we came home to clean and do laundry, etc.  Gotta get ready for another work week which should be a pretty exciting one!  Stay tuned!

2015

Well, our 2015 is off to an amazing start. We spent New Year's Eve at our neighbors house. We stayed long enough to watch the ball drop in NYC (which actually happened 3 hours earlier... always a little disappointing and definitely a point for the East coast if anyone is keeping score).   Then we promptly walked home (uphill) in the cold, and hit the sack (because we feel old and it was a challenge to stay up 'till midnight). 

New Year's Day we each did our own thing. Mike had plans to go backcountry skiing with a friend and I made plans to meet up with a few different people at Heavenly. I had an awesome day of skiing, both by myself and with friends. Mike had a long climb and an excellent workout with great views. We were both successfully tired and happy at the end of the day. 

In fact, we had so much fun, we chose to do more skiing the next day!  We met up with some other neighbors on the slopes and took a few runs with them. 

So that brings us to Saturday... On a holiday weekend... In a tourist town. We chose NOT to go skiing for fear of crappy snow and a plethora of "tourons" (tourist +moron = touron).  So we went sledding instead. Yep... two 30ish year old children took our river-floating-tubes to the gas station for air and then went in search of an awesome sledding hill. We may have made a ramp area and we might have packed some snow on the sides so we could bank the turns. We had a blast. I'm so grateful to have a partner in this life who will act like a 5 year old with me sometimes!  It makes life fun! 

Saturday afternoon I joined some of my favorite Tahoe girls for some shopping and Greek food in Reno. I can not express how much I love being around these girls. My face was constantly red and my cheeks hurt from laughing so much. They are simply some of the best and I feel so lucky to have met them! 

This is normally where I would insert pictures from our adventures BUT I only took videos of the sledding...and they are awesome!  I can not post those videos at this time however because I am blogging from my phone (basically like writing the worlds longest text message) and unfortunately my phone won't allow me to upload videos?!?! 

 Why am I blogging from my phone?  

Because my husband is currently on a road trip to Wyoming in search of "fluffy fluff pow pow" and he took the laptop. 

Why don't I use his desktop?  

Well, I could but I'm lazy. And this way I get to blog from my cozy warm bed.  

So... you will have to contain your excitement for now and check back for the videos which I hope to post soon. 

In other news, having 2 weeks off from work for the holidays has been fantastic and simultaneously makes it very difficult to go back to work (which I have to do tomorrow morning... Which is also why I'm not in the car on my way to Wyoming with the boys). 

I've got some plans for 2015 in regards to finishing my "30 before 30" list. I'm officially over half way done with the list. I will post an update on that at some point.  

Right now though, it's time for bed and I will leave you with some inspiration from today's sermon (yep... as in church sermon... as in Blair and Mike have been trying to go to church sometimes).  Anyway... this life is temporary. We are all just passing through on our way to a better place. All the stress we put on ourselves is truly for nothing. All the possessions we want may not be necessary (you can't take it with you).  In the big picture, we really don't get much time here, so how are you going to spend it?  Put your hope in the future (the heavenly future) because that's when life truly begins!  

Happy 2015 to all and seriously, stay tuned for those sledding videos... they're good!!!