winter snow & ice injuries

Winter 2005 / 2006

I really haven't been injuring myself much lately --
well, in a strictly relative sense. A brief synopsis
of injuries from the Winter 2005-2006 season, where
all injuries are the combined fault of frozen water
(ice and/or snow) and user error. In order of occurrence:

• left hip bruise:
  On one of the strangely balmy days that punctuate a Front Range winter, Jason and I were able to go for a mountain bike ride near Red Rocks. Sunny, warm, 95% snow- and ice-free trail ... well, I found a lovely black ice section in a shaded ravine. The bike slammed me down sideways, I landed sorta head and hip first -- no helmet crack, just a bruised hip.
  
• lower back bruise:
  A day of snowboarding at Keystone with my friend Cynthia, we spent lots of our day going through the trees hunting for powder but all we could find is ice, icy moguls, and more hardpack. I'm not sure which of my many falls that day caused this baby, but I do know the fall creating this bruise came with a lovely dose of pain shooting up my spine followed
  by many expletives.
  
• knee bruises:
  Another balmy day, another moutain bike ride, this time at Buffalo Creek. Slid out on some ice, thankfully at a low speed; I mostly remained on my feet but slammed enough of the
  bike frame against my knees to receive a nice early-season collection of bruises.
  
• back injury:
  A new pattern and injury for the Bruise Key!!! Snowboarding at Eldora with some friends, we were going through Jolly Jug Glades (fairly low-angle and well-spaced trees)
  early in the day; I made a poor choice of path and ended up in a tight section of 5-10 small trees which were closer together than my snowboard is long. Hmmm, this does
  not bode well. I ricocheted off one tree with my board, spun into another, at which point
  I thought I was about to stop but instead slid backwards a bit more and wrapped myself around a tree back-first. Didn't see it coming, and got the wind knocked
  out of my lungs. Made it down the mountain (and a few more easy runs after that), and ski patrol said I probably didn't injure any internal organs, but damn does my back hurt!
  I'm walking like I'm 80 years old. However, tossing and turning at night does have the unintended benefit of incrementally readjusting my spine - no chiropractor for me, I've got a bed! Should be fine by next weekend.
  

sitting on a cactus

April 25, 2005

I recently spent 5 days of spectacular mountain biking in Moab, Utah with
a bunch of awesome friends, and only one day on the Soverign
Trail involved anything interesting from an accident perspective. However,
on one slightly loose uphill I ran out of steam and put down my foot on the
side of the trail. Foot slipped and I fell over. I thought to myself
"oh, at least this happened at zero speed, won't hurt at all." Nope,
I managed to land butt-first on the only cactus in a 200yd radius.
Suddenly this little bobble didn't seem so benign.


A couple buddies nearby kindly took a picture of the carnage before I declared "this stings - I'm taking off my pants." Thus began 20 minutes of standing naked on the side of a trail (thankfully, no other riders came by) while I picked needles out of my bike shorts and my amazing, faithful hubby Jason picked needles out of my butt. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

After removing as many needles as possible (but you can never get them all), I got back on the bike for 10-15 miles more trail. By the end of the day my butt looked like hamburger.

The other bruises and loss of skin mostly came from a little bit further along Soverign -- I came around a corner too fast, drifted off the trail and right into a foot-deep hole in the rock. I landed knees first on the other side of the hole and also bruised the base of my left
hand. This is where a well-placed bunny hop would have come in handy. :)

snowboarding jump

March 19, 2005

On Saturday, went out for a normal day of snowboarding at Winter Park, where they'd received
about a foot of new snow in previous days. Thus, a perfect time to try some jumps since the landing would be more cushioned than normal.


I am a horrible jumper - I never get much air and I almost always go off sideways. I took a jump where I got almost a foot of air (good!) and took off straight (good!), but landed with my snowboard tail down (BAD!) -- the tail dug into the soft snow and my body was torqued forward over the now-stationary board. I felt some tearing and pain on the inside of my right knee, but managed to gingerly take a few more runs over the remainder of the day. Can't be too bad if I can still ride a snowboard and walk, right?

On Monday, a trip to the physical therapists (who run a nifty sports injury clinic for idiots like me) taught me a little about knee anatomy and revealed that:

• my knee is swollen
• I probably somewhat strained/tore my MCL
• might have strained my ACL
• might have tore up some meniscus cartilage
• I need to have a follow-up appointment with an orthopedics specialist

Thus begins the extra-fun period of time when I wait for my body to heal and hope nothing is wrong in the long-term.