March 14, 2004
Limb by Limb
I’ve been all about challenging myself this winter. Let us become a snowboard instructor. Let us reinvent ourselves in another new town. Let us design websites at a professional level. Let us see what happens when we attempt infinite workweeks. Let us learn how to drive a five-speed manual transmission on a new 2004 Subaru Legacy Wagon.
When you buy a backpack for snowboarding, they always tell you about how useful those external straps are for strapping your snowboard to your back. Makes it super-convenient to carry your board in the backcountry, they say. What they never tell you, however, is how great those straps are for carrying around your x-rays after busting your leg in the terrain park. Cuz, like, when you’re hobbling around on crutches, the last thing you want to be thinking about is how in the hell you’re gonna carry your x-rays.
Today I broke my leg while freeriding at the mountain. I got kicked all weird off a spine in the terrain park, was headed straight for the flats and tried to butter my landing to soften the blow to my legs. The board buttered out just fine, but my weight was so far back that the top of my bindings acted like a fulcrum against my fibia, busting that bone in two. I heard it pop. I sat down right there and had Kyle summon ski patrol. I got to wrap myself up in a yellow tarp and ride in a sled towed by a skiier. I got a cast and crutches and happy pills and have nearly fallen down the stairs at least four times. I got a ride down from the mountain with some friends, and my roommate was kind enough to go for a walk and retrieve my car from the park and ride.
Bones take six weeks to knit back together, so I won’t be driving or rock climbing or snowboarding or hiking or kiteboarding any time soon. I will need to restructure my free time to embrace activities I can do. Any suggestions for new hobbies, be they brewing beer, knitting a sweater or commiting arson, would be greatly appreciated. Let us take this opportunity of limitation to do things new and exciting. Perhaps I will become an expert at Risk.
As for the rest of ya’ll, stay safe. Or break your legs. Either way. A broken leg is a great social ice breaker, and you’ll find yourself chatting with interesting people that you would never have met, otherwise. And perhaps you will find yourself chatting with people who just recently you thought were as good as gone.
Fate is funny that way.
Aw, it’s just a fibia. You barely need those. Sometimes if they don’t heal right they’ll just remove part of it so things don’t rub together. Although yours looks like it’s about midshaft; more proximal is better.
As for hobbies, this seems like a good time to pick up your sax or mandolin and really learn to play the blues. Or buy and build a experimental aircraft; you could get help from family via conference calls to Minnesota. Although from what I hear it might take you longer than six weeks.
Drop out of sight for six weeks and emerge with a new tibia and a publisher. Pick a topic, say something like: “Allegorical Snowboarding and The Hegelian Conflict: A study of modern coming of age in the land of Mylar, Mountains and Micro-Brews.” You’ve already acquired a depth of knowledge, all you need now is an outline and an accountant to calculate all the “research” write-offs for the 2003 tax year.
Or set a goal to sample every beer in the Bend area while utilizing only public transportation. Either project will add equally to your sense of self worth…and will easily chew up the bulk of six weeks.
Chimera, you are a genius. Perhaps I will run experiments on what happens when I mix every Bend micro-brew with a bottle of prescription narcotics.
It’s fun to watch reality melt away.
Wow, i cant believe you broke your leg. I mean, a freaking tree hits you in the head, knocks you into some rocks, and all you get is a little concussion and a great picture of a crazy male nurse. (on a side note, man, those hunters at the hospital sure were messed up. i wonder what they were hunting). Now out in the west, you simply take a bad jump, and bones snap. Dane, your getting weak. Also, i think this means we wll not be snowboarding in april. shit. i was really looking foreward to that. well, good luck with your bones knitting and all. Be sure to drink your Sunny-D with calcium!
the wit already exceeds my own…suffice to say that you ring the distinction of being the first woocher! i know to do serious damage to self (i don’t count cracked ribs – only crippling injuries). besides – how can you be worried about what to do when you’ve a whole set of prescription pain killers! bring on the pink elephants…
Aw shucks Dane. A genius?? Really? Ya think so?
I owe it all to beer and TV. They made me into the chimera I am today.
*clicks back to boobies page*
Yay for boobies!
Welcome back, Nate!
Damn, those really were some bloodied hunters. Gallons of blood, severed fingers, a helicopter evac… it’s like they were hunting a World’s Strongest Man Gone Feral or something.