My wife Tracy and I went skiing in Colorado this past week. What an incredible time! I've always been an expert skier and enjoy bombing the black diamonds. I demo'd some new high performance K2 AMP Rictor skis that were just the ticket for this challenging terrain.
Well this past Friday (Apr. 6th) was our last day. It got warm and the snow conditions deteriorated to "mashed potato" slush with a nice dose of ice underneath. It is pretty tiring to ski this slop, so I decided to knock off an hour early and meet Tracy and her sister down at the lodge for cocktails. I chose an easy blue intermediate trail for the descent and headed off.
About 1/3 of the way down, I hit an unexpected patch of ice which sent me into the pile of slush I had been turning to avoid. I wasn't going fast - maybe 20 mph, but the sideways hit was too much for my tired suspension to absorb. I got knocked sideways and landed hard on my right hip.
OUCH - That hurt. I was able after a while to untangle myself and gingerly get to the side of the trail for a systems check. Nobody was around (since the smart ones had already gone in!) I determined that my right hip was reasonably stable and could bear some weight. I decided to gently ski down the easiest possible way back to the lodge. Not a big deal, but i must have looked funny to the people on the chair lift!
Once I arrived at the lodge and sat down, I started thinking about that same hip, which I fractured five years ago riding off-road motorcycles. The ortho at the time was whispering in my ear, "If you do anything to that hip again, get it checked immediately!" Honestly it felt like a bad bruise, and if it was the other leg I probably would have gone home and numbed it with vodka drinks. Fortunately I listened to the inner voice, and when Tracy arrived we arranged for the ski patrol to take me down to the Breckenridge clinic.
Here I am getting ready for the 300 yard ride to the clinic. I thought it was ridiculous because I felt fine, but rulz is rulz:
Once in the clinic, I got all stripped down and waited for x-ray. The paper shorts are a nice touch, eh? I was still feeling confident that I'd be given a clean bill of health. Notice the GoPro camera, unscathed of course!
Well, shortly after, I got the x-rays taken. When the clinic physician pulled the first film out of the sleeve, he exclaimed, "WHOA!" My shoulders slumped and I rolled my eyes in anticipation of the news. Here is what he saw (with Tracy's finger modeling the area of interest).
That's the neck of my right femur. It is actually fractured 3/4 of the way through, with a chunk knocked off the back for good measure. It was sobering to think I had skied down the mountain on that.
The doctors became very urgent at this point and got a surgical team assembled at the neighboring hospital. Fortunately in this part of the country they are very good at this type of work
I was out of surgery less than five hours after the fall. With new titanium con rod bolts, they say I will be back to my full rev potential in eight weeks:
I must say they did an outstanding job. I was out of the hospital Saturday and we flew home to California Sunday. By Monday I was off the narcotic pain meds (what a cornucopia they gave me!!) and up on crutches. Today I'm driving and getting around like it's no big deal. As long as I stay on the straight and narrow, I'm expected to make a full and complete recovery.
Moral of the story: When in doubt, get yourself checked. If I hadn't gone in when i did, and got the fracture fixated within six hours of the injury, which restored the blood supply to my hip joint, I would have been facing a hip replacement.
Touch of humor: What did my 90-year old dad have to say about this? "Son, after all of these years I thought you would have run out of stupid." I love my dad, and it makes me smile to think I gave him so much pleasure to get one over on me.
