Easter in Wonderland

Easter..... the traditional time to go skiing.....

Andrew had the awesome idea of booking the Eldorado cabin in Tyax for Easter weekend, and we had the awesome idea of cornering him and hitting him over the head repeatedly until he agreed to let us come too. 

I didn't actually take any pics of the hut because the mountains were so pretty! This is as close as I got. The mountain in the background is bigger in the next pic.

Bigger mountain - the cornice overhangs "Guillaume's couloir" - which he never did ski so we have no pictures of that

 Mountains, and clouds. And some trees and rocks

Angie hated the whole trip

 more mountains and clouds

Yup, more

Tracked out, go to next pouffy mountain

 more tracks

Chris currently not actually making tracks. But he did cast a shadow which makes him look very high up. It was probably exciting.

Monochromatic moment. 

Not monochromatic.

Even less monochromatic

Chris not making tracks again. But still making shadows, which is important. I forget what you are if you don't make any, but you should check occasionally to be sure you have one. 

After which time he made pouffy tracks if you look closely at the treed ridge

"Go" means - this leg, do not cut into the other leg. It already has a plate on the fibula. 

The 'Go' story

Pictures say 1000 words. Words like "I am on the sofa" and "I am taking narcotics"or "I need to take more narcotics"as well as  "I am not an artist for very good reasons"  .... Please remember these words as you read....

Once upon a time I was skiing the last few hundred meters of snow down the logging road, with a pack on my back and quite possibly a smile on my face. Since there was only a ridge of snow down the middle of the road and dirt beside the ridge, I was snowplowing since I didn't want to hit 100 km/hr and there wasn't enough room for me to parallel turn without hitting dirt. 

Then my left ski fell off - why?????? This is me with one ski and dirt. The snow is white so you can't really see it. I have very red arms. 

Within a split second my right ski was at the left side of the road and hit dirt. Normally I would drop anchor - aka my ass - but apparently a split second was not quite enough time. 

My amazing artistic rendition of the relevant ankle bits

My foot twisted to the outside (green arrow at bottom), and I felt it "give" as it twisted - the give was the talus and tibia having an argument. The fibula holds the side of your ankle, and when the talus (big ankle bone labelled talus) spun around it snapped the end of the fibula off (which is the little essential bit that holds the side of your ankle together) 

Sproinging of ligaments was not audible btw. Cchlunk was noticeable. 

Since I felt the "cchlunking" - the first thing I thought was I need to twist that back before I think about it. So I grabbed my toes and did a backwards "cchlunk". Luckily the ski boot kept it from twisting further, or it may not have gone back into place so nicely. It was kind of a nasty feeling. I may have quietly whimpered at that moment. 

My lovely (and new) ski may have broken at that time. No one told me until Marc spilled the beans much later. Since the kilonewtons had to go somewhere, maybe it's good the ski took one for the team, but I'm very sad. My mom said "whatever, it's not like you'll be doing anything in the next 3 years anyway, you need to work out your priorities". Yes, mom. 

and now... for the fun part. Part two. 

Part two: Exodus

Kala and Guillaume run down the last 5? km to the truck, and drive to Tyax lodge where there is apparently an ATV that can help in case of emergency. Although that may or may not be true, no such ATV appears in this story. 

I am piled onto sleeping bags and covered with many down jackets and given hot tea and Advil. The rest of the group tries to cheer me up, but since that gets a bit boring and the wait is a bit long they start drinking and setting fire to things. That cheers me up. 

Kala and Guillaume return, and although Search and Rescue are going to come it'll be a while. We are also in the trees - so a chopper can't land anyway. 

Thanks to some inventive Wilderness First aid - Marc cuts two trees with Paul's snow saw for stretcher bits, and they get attached with Andrew's hose clamps into a rectangle. The middle of the stretcher is a pack (poles through compression straps on either side) and a jacket (turn sleeves inside out into jacket, zip up jacket so you essentially have 2 "tubes" in it to slide poles through). 

Lina splints my leg further - we now have a ski boot, sam splint to ½ calf area, and ski poles on either side to femur. Joint above being splinted got rid of the last rotation, and I can now move my own leg without whinging. 

I get piled on stretcher, feeling horrible as I watch 4 grown men sweat and puff as they try to carry me. WHY do I EAT SO MUCH??????????  The stretcher business goes amazingly well, other than that I can't believe we actually have to do this. And I don't know if Andrew, Paul or Chris can move their hands or shoulders yet. My suggestions for hopping are ignored..... Guillaume,  Kala, Lina and Angie carry 5 million pounds of gear to the road....

2 km from the parking lot Lina and a random guy that wanted to go for an ATV ride with his son appear. Apparently we took his child and will only give it back if he gives me a ride to the road. He does, and I think we returned the child? Did anyone check? Or do we still have one? It was kind of a cute one. 

At the road it gets silly, because chopper and ambulance have shown up. Realistically, we needed help to get TO the road. Once there - we have cars.....

Part three, the medical cluster- &*^%$

But... since the ambulance is there they want to take me. Incidentally, they can't talk to the chopper, and have no idea what it is doing. Fun. The chopper lands. Since the chopper came all the way out - they want to take me....

I inform the ambulance paramedics that I get motion sick, and they can't turf me out of the back of the ambulance fast enough. 

The chopper ride was brilliant!!!!! I wish I had pics, but my camera was with my pack. 

The chopper takes me to Pemberton hospital, where they confirm that I need an X-ray. They don't have an X-ray tech on weekends so I'm sent to Whistler by ambulance, where the dr and nurses stay late to help me. (the chopper asked to go straight through and were told not to, which I'm sure the late-staying medical people would be very happy to know) 

I get an X-ray in Whistler, and the Dr is awesome - phones around to see which Vancouver hosp can do sx asap. I get an ambulance to VGH - where Yvonne works! I really want to request her as my anesthesiologist, but I'm not sure that's something I'm allowed to do. And I'd probably need to ask her first to see if she would actually want to do that :o)

I go to VGH. It's midnight. 

Part Four -this could be still part three, because the description is kind of the same

Tuesday......  I'm told by several nurses I'll be in hospital until Wednesday for monitoring. I get taken to surgery early afternoon, and get a 5 second consult with 3 very tired looking residents. The surgeon comes over so they have no chance to tell me anything and I get a 21 second consult with the surgeon. I hope he understands I want to use my leg some more, and "good enough for government work" isn't going to cut it. I'm not sure he noticed me very much, so I hope he's good. He feels I can go home that night. The residents are gone.

Dr Yu is my anesthesiologist, and seems awake and has a confidence inspiring manner. Helpful in someone I'm trusting with my life. Yvonne comes over and we chat, which takes the edge off the surreal experience as well.

Fentanyl rocks.

I feel an endotracheal tube being removed and slowly come to. The nurse reminds me occasionally to breathe - either it's common to forget post anesthesia or this is just me, but this happened to me last time. And then I feel guilty for being so useless as to forget to breathe, and then I forget again. Useless twit - breathe!



I assume this is what they did. I "assume" because it was the surgeon's last day, and last surgery. Presumably why I'm home now, because just maybe he didn't want to have to hand off a patient to someone else? There are no surgery notes. No one from surgery talks to me or Marc. I am to be released "whenever" (which surprised some folks looking for me today to arrange home-care stuff ). The nurse calls a resident who calls Marc, but since that resident wasn't in surgery he doesn't actually know what happened and he can't exactly fudge it from the non-existent notes. No one can show me my X-rays so I can figure out what they did because they need a password. My discharge notes say to take Oxycodone and recheck with a different surgeon in two weeks, and I'm told to not take the splint off or weight bear on that leg. I guess those are instructions.....  and concise. Gotta give them that. Very concise.

So Marc picked me up, and now we're selling some Oxy cheap if anyone wants any. I assume the diagram below is what they did, since I was apparently the only person in the surgery room yesterday I figure I can make up whatever I want. Incidentally, I have a plate on the left fibula that looks very much like this one....







If anyone is still reading - your job is boring. And your boss just looked over your shoulder while you were trying to decipher stuff.