wowch

i would love to show you pictures of the bruises, but it's too hard to take off my tights except if i really need to pee, and if it's ok with you, that's not the best time for me to be taking pictures.

sunday was closing day on the mountain. unless you just came in in the last ten minutes, you know this.

so i went skiing. and it was FABULOUS. and run by run i said goodbye to my winter mountain. last run off number one chair. last trip to the firetower. last run down cobrass. last run down fanny hill. ticking them off.

and finally i got to last run of the year.

it was going well, too. i was moving fast.

until i caught an edge and suddenly was not going much of anywhere.

which is sort of not true. the way i remember it, i was going fast and then i was lying in the snow.

the way the eight or nine teenagers who stopped to help described it, "dude, you hit hard.",  "you bounced and flew and bounced again."

apparently i bounced two or three times. and i laid motionless in the snow, unable to even lift a hand. the kids, i think, took my skis and crossed them in the snow above me in the snow, which is a caution sign to uphill skiers. when i got up later they had put them in the snow for me to step into, but the holes were there in the snow from the crossing.

they wanted to know if i needed ski patrol.

i didn't think so. i told them i was going to need a few minutes before i'd be able to move. i did not explain to them that it's a known thing with me that a hard body blow usually results in a temporary total paralysis and sometimes unconsciousness.

i felt myself going dark, but didn't actually pass out. it was weird. it's like when you go halfway through a door and then realize you weren't going there anyway.

one by one, my arms and feet came back online. i could feel all my parts, and i could feel some very bad bruising on my right leg. pretty sure nothing broken. no familiar snap of connective tissue, but obviously a lot of swelling.sharp, burning pain. felt like broken skin, but under layers of ski clothes. gasping, breathing hard from pain.

i got up. the kids stayed with me until i looked all right. i got back on my skis and very gingerly skied down. at the lodge i managed to get myself out of my boots and into the muck boots i wear between home and the mountain. they're not exactly tight boots. they slip on.

the swelling of that right leg filled up the boot pretty firmly. by the time i got it off,  there was a clear line where the boot had compressed the bruise.

ice, NSAIDs, elevation, good compression tights.

it is a spectacluar bruise, and the swelling was sufficient to prevent me bending the knee much. and yes, i managed somehow to tear the skin. there's a wedge-shaped place where the top layer got peeled off and i guess the flesh twisted enough to tear. it's not too wide, but it looks deepish. i've never see a wound like it, so i don't know exactly  how it would have happened.

today, even through clothing i can see the leg is swollen, but it bears weight ok and as long as i don't jiggle the bruised muscles too much, it's only mildly painful. ice packs are my friends, and i have spent a lot of horizontal time today.

and really, it's no hardship wearing the tights. i pretty much wear athletic tights 24/7 eight months a year by way of long johns and / or pajamas. i am simply choosing to wear my springiest, most supportive pairs for a while.

it's funny, because as the bruise (which is very deep) blooms, the color of it it shaped by the pattern of the wrinkles and seams.

wow. ouch.

wowch.

but it was an awesome day skiing, and since the mountain is closed, i care little. i'm not missing much.