Sooooo....where was I? Ah yes, I just talked about the first two days of our awesome trip to Snowmass and how I'm #1 on Adam Sandler's speed dial. That was Sunday.
All the veterans are expected to either ski or snowboard two days--plus there's a short "race" on Friday. We also had to take part in two alternate activities during the week. They offered a variety of activities like sled hockey, curling, scuba diving (in the heated pool), or trips to hot springs or to Aspen. Monday, I was slated for an alternate activity and I chose to cross-country ski, just like last year.
It's hard for me to keep my balance on cross-country skis, so my instructor (same one I had last year) set me up in The Slider--pictured below. My instructor--Bobbi from New Mexico--actually invented The Slider and was a wealth of knowledge on adaptive skiing and snowboarding. It worked well for me, and I didn't have any falls over a two-mile course. However, I was tethered to Bobbi the whole time, in case I got out of control and needed to be stopped. I really prefer doing these activities on my own, so I think I'll try snowshoeing next year to see if I'm able to do it solo.
"Four skis gooood; two skis baaaaad" (random Animal Farm reference?)
After skiing, we were served elk stew by, fittingly, the local Elk's Lodge. They had a generator at the site but my Blendtec probably would've overloaded it, so I got my stew to go and just had water and talked with some of the other vets. I noticed a backpack at one table that said "Air Force Football" and "WAC Champions" on it. I asked the owner (a dude about twice my size named Jeff) if he went to the Academy and it turned out he graduated the year after I did.
Jeff became a Combat Controller in the Air Force. Forget SEALs and Green Berets; in my opinion, Combat Controllers are the real badasses of the military. They get imbedded with SEAL teams and Army A-Teams so that the Army and Navy can communicate with Air Force planes flying in the area. So, they have to go through all the training the other special forces teams do, in addition to learning how to be air controllers in the field. Anyway, Jeff did all this training, became a Combat Controller, then he was recruited to join the AF Office of Special Investigations (OSI; the AF version of NCIS, if you're familiar with that show).
Jeff deployed to northern Iraq to conduct missions for the OSI. While he was there, he got in a car accident and sustained a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). I actually found quite a few TBIs among the veterans in Snowmass. It can be a very debilitating injury. Jeff also began to show early signs of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The Air Force decided to retire him in 2006 and right around this time, Jeff's wife was diagnosed with stage 3 lymphoma. Piled on with this, Jeff has PTSD from his Iraqi deployment. Crazy, right? How much can one guy take? He was taking it all in stride, though. He ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 2012--he told me he fell down about 10 times and was all bloody at the end. He's trying out to compete in the 2014 Warrior Games. He's also planning to hike 60 miles in 24 hours on May 30-31 to raise money for Team Racing for Veterans (R4V). Team R4V inspires and empowers disabled veterans through fitness. Jeff's fundraising page is here if you're interested: http://www.crowdrise.com/1VTforR4V/fundraiser/jeffhaugh. He convinced me to do it with him, so I'm sure I'll be writing more about it later.
Jeff Haugh, USAFA class of '99, talking to some weirdo
Vodka is awesome at high altitudes...I mean water! Water...what did I say?
My first day of snowboarding was on Tuesday. I was fortunate enough to have one of the same coaches I had last year, Michelle. Michelle is originally from Australia but now resides on Vancouver Island, Canada, where she mostly works with Autistic kids while doing a little snowboarding on the side. She is a terrific coach and really knowledgeable about adaptive snowboarding. My other coach was a skier (nobody's perfect) named Jim. Jim lived in Aspen most of his life so he was really familiar with the mountain. He'd also worked a lot with the adaptive equipment I was using.
Last year I was tethered to my instructor the whole time I was snowboarding. Just as with cross-country skiing, this was so my coach could stop me if I started getting out of control or started to fall. I likened it to tandem skydiving: kinda cool in its own way, but I prefer the thrill and freedom of doing it on my own. So, this time I tried using an outrigger. It's sort of a little ball or ski on the end of a cane I use for balance while I'm boarding. First, I tried using the ball. It worked pretty well, but it's mainly for boarding at lower speeds. When I got going fast, it kept getting caught in the snow (there was a lot of powder).
I tried holding an outrigger in my weak hand too, but it was useless
Then I used the regular outrigger. At first, it was hard to get used to; you have to make sure the ski is pointed the same way you're going. You can also point the ski in the direction you'd like to turn to help you go one way or the other (I had some trouble with left turns last year). Once I finally got used to it (actually not until the last run I took on Friday), it was awesome!!! Just to have that feeling back of surfing freely down the slope was incredibly uplifting for me. I am so thankful to Michelle and Jim for helping me get there!!!
My outrigger
This is on Thursday. Michelle got video on Friday, but she hasn't sent it to me yet.
I did get injured on Thursday. I fell backward down an icy patch of the slope and hit my head on the ground. I was wearing a helmet, but I saw stars. Michelle got worried about me and decided to call the ski patrol to take me to the clinic. So, ski patrol guy shows up, asks me how many fingers he's holding up, I say "eleventy," and they strap me into the yellow sled so they can drag me down the mountain behind their emergency, light-flashing, siren-ringing, snowmobile. One of my friends, a veteran with a TBI named Steve, happened to be there when it happened. He promptly texted another friend of mine, Mark back in Knoxville (I've written about him before) who apparently got the idea my fall was much more serious and told his wife I had sustained my own TBI. It actually wasn't a big deal; I was given some ibuprofen and got back on the mountain after lunch.
My other injury during the trip happened on Friday and was WAY more serious, as you can see from the picture:
I won't cry I won't cry I won't cry I won't cry I won't cry
I was snowboarding on my last, really awesome, run and fell on my weak arm wrong. I didn't even notice the mortal injury until a couple hours later. By that point it had swollen to the size of a small marble, I was starting to get lightheaded and babbling feverishly. Betsy decided to get X-rays just to see how much of my hand they'd have to amputate. As it turned out, I had some complex condition called a "brewz." I don't know medical jargon so I may have gotten the spelling wrong. If I die from this, please tell Grace her daddy was brave.
My other alternate activity that week was snowmobiling. I'd never been before so I was pretty excited about it. On the way there, we saw a herd of elk:
"Don't stay at the Elk's Lodge! It's a trap!!!!!"
Once we arrived, they had me put on their Night Rider helmet.
Where's my ride?
To make the snowmobile go, you just press on a lever with your right hand. So I could have driven it by myself, but unfortunately the brake lever is operated by the left hand so I had to have someone ride behind me in case I needed to stop. Snowmobiling is fun. Really beautiful scenery. The drawbacks were: it's really loud and since we were in a large group with one course, we ended up getting backed up in a long line. I was behind 10 other snowmobiles and couldn't really go as fast as I'd like.
Wouldn't get much use out of it in Tennessee though
Perfect Colorado Scenery
On Wednesday night, Grace and I let mommy rest in the hotel room and went to the ski/snowboard instructor appreciation dance. It was hard to get Grace off the dance floor.
She just held my hand and kept twirling around and around and around
She ended up getting schooled on some moves by Michelle.
She also danced with one of our Team Leaders, Jessica. I think I mentioned before that all the veterans were split up into teams, according to our abilities. So, all the wheelchair-bound vets had their own teams and the blind skiers were in a couple teams. I was on Team Head Wall. I don't know what our main issue was; we had some guys with MS, TBI, PTSD, and random people like me. Every team had about three team leaders who helped us get to our events and dealt with any problems that arose. This was Jessica's first year at the clinic. She's a college student in Grand Junction, CO, and was a great help to us taking care of Grace.
Just look at Grace's cute dimple
I think I'll stop the blog post here so I can devote the next one to talking about how I ate during the trip. Once again, I have to be that guy....To Be Continued....
Oh, I've got my own page on Facebook now. Take a look at it and give it a 'Like' if you want. Is that pretentious to have my own Facebook page? Maybe if all my "fans" were fake Facebook accounts I created...but I wouldn't do something like that...Nope, all my 374,527 fans are living, breathing people...
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