Sydney here with another blog for this week! This week I have chosen to write about and share a short (ok maybe not so short) story about the last 6 weeks of my life. As much as I wish I could say that I've been doing really cool things and training in freestyle, I sadly can not.
The Monday of the Canada Day long weekend I found myself playing in this little feature called Fluffy Bunny. No one in the group I was with knew what the level was really so we were all playing in Fluffy Bunny and having fun. All of a sudden it was my turn again and I decided to throw a McNasty. This is a 180 degree rotation (half of a spin) into a loop (essentially a front somersault.) As I was doing the loop part of the trick, I thought to myself "YES THIS ONE'S GONNA GO!!" and then all of a sudden there was this ridiculous pain all across my face. I had hit a rock, I looked around and realized I was still surfing the wave. I went to paddle out, windowshaded (flipped) and rolled up behind the wave. Immediately I knew something had gone wrong when I saw the blood pouring from my nose and mouth and knew I needed help. I wasn't really able to process words or think straight so I just screamed until someone came to help, which was very quickly thankfully. From there I paddled to Keenerville still bleeding and not fully aware of anything and Ryan Whetung helped me out of my boat and up the hill while my step dad got my boat. We used Ryan's phone to call my mom who wasn't on the river at the time and she took me to the Pembroke hospital. After a CT Scan the results were I had many many many fractures in my face all over and there was nothing they could do besides give me pills and send me on my way with ice. After this we drove home which was 6 hours away and got the rest of the medication that was prescription. They said it would take 6-8 weeks until it was fully healed.
The following 3 weeks included laying in bed. I would wake up at noon, get some food my mom had gotten ready for me before work and watch a tiny bit of tv sometimes. After this I would be exhausted again and sleep until I was woken up for dinner, then I would sit with my parents for a bit then go back to sleep until noon the next day. It was a very tiring healing process, even just going for a car ride was enough to make me sleep for a few hours after. I was very good- with reminders from my mom- about remembering to take all my pills and pretty much always have ice on my face so it wasn't too painful. Mostly it was the headaches and pounding head that bothered me. I'm generally a very hyper, energetic person and especially after literally just having gotten home from 6 weeks outside in Colorado around tons of people, it was different. I got lonely and felt trapped because I had no energy to leave my room let alone house.
During the fourth and fifth week I started going into my moms store for half days and doing stained glass and mosaics as well as working the till. It was a good, easy way to get out of the house and my mom could still watch me and see how I was doing.
The sixth week was my first week here at Keeners. I was WAY more nervous than I had realized I would be about getting on the water. There was more than a few situations and still some are coming up, where my friends encourage me to do something that I'm nervous about. The coaches and myself noticed I didn't have nearly as much energy as I normally do and had to take it very easy and be conscious of how I was feeling. Usually pushing your limits is good however in my case, it was and is not in this particular situation. With a very close watch from Claire and Anna especially as well as my safety buddy on the river Conner (he makes sure I roll up or saves me if I have to swim- appointed by Claire), I paddled every day all day. This was exhausting to say the least especially since I was always dead by lunch, but I always sat out a little longer after lunch or did what I had to do so I could stay on the river. This was important to me because it made me feel like I was finally getting better and progressing. Even it was only by staying on the water all day, it made me slightly more confident.
Over the last week I started to slowly return to myself. I took the weekend easy with a short play session at Babyface on Saturday and only 4 surfs at Babyface on Sunday. Monday when I returned to the water I was VERY stoked to say the least, all day long. I still had energy when I got off the river!! That was something that was almost new to me after feeling dead for 6 weeks straight. I've taken a couple shots at surfing and playing on Garb. This was probably one of the biggest challenges I've had to face while here. To catch Garb you drop in from above and have to get really close to Moby Dick rock. This was terrifying for me because there's so much water pushing on top of Moby Dick I was so nervous about getting close. The last thing I wanted was to get dragged over the rock and that's all I could think about. After dropping in a few times, I realized it was good to go and mentally something clicked, and I felt confident while dropping in. I was hesitant and nervous at first about tricks because I was scared to take a paddle to the face or hit the water hard and there were so many things going through my head that could go wrong. This held me back for a bit but finally I started to get over it and try tricks. Since Monday I've been working on clean spins, blunts and backstabs mostly. Today Stevo said something that made me feel good about myself and realize I'm getting back to myself. He told me he's "impressed at how well I've been doing especially since I just took over a month off." It was a simple thing that took almost nothing for him to say but it made me realize how far I've come from that first day back and how terrified I was. Looking back, I realize yeah it was a bad thing that happened but everyone takes their blows and you can either let it stop you or you can come back stronger. My wave boating has never been as good as it has been lately and I'm doing things I never thought I'd be able to get down.
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| So stoked to be back on Garb! |
Well, if you're still reading, thankyou. I appreciate it, these past few weeks have been a rollercoaster of emotion and they haven't been easy BUT they can only get better from here.
Cheers,
Sydney
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