You Want to do What?

I feel like an old woman. It wasn't driving Nick's parents' sweet, still-smells-like-leather, immaculate car on the tiny village roads that did it - although sharing those gorgeous roads with semis does give me pause, it's got to be said (and much of the way to Grenoble is autoroute anyway)... No. My accelerated aging program began the moment Nick asked the guy at the ski rental shop the size of their largest ski boot. When they said 52 (Nick is a 50, size 16 in the US) I knew we were in trouble. What were the chances of that?? Even smaller, I thought, was the likelihood Nick would actually take it as a sign that he should ski while visiting his cousins who were vacationing in Collet d'Allevard, near Grenoble. So along with gear for Cayenne, Acacia and me, we piled ridiculously big boots and skis into the car before heading to the hills.

I was not happy.

We stopped by Francoise and Philippe's place (Nick's aunt and uncle) for a cup of tea, which helped me decompress a bit before white-knuckling it up the hairpin turns to the ski town - the drive to which, I realised on the way down after we were done skiing, is not bad at all. I was just strung tighter than a piano wire on the way there, and didn't truly loosen up until the skiing was done, two days later.

Cayenne and Acacia had a blast with all their "cousins," who are really the kids of Nick's cousins but no one knows what that is exactly. Actually, they would be their second cousins, just Googled it. That's easy enough; it's their relationship to Nick - first cousins once removed - where things get complicated. Anywho, the girls are old enough now to get that just because they understand their French speaking cousins, it doesn't mean their English is understood in return. So they used the local lingo and when that didn't work, did what kids all over the world do and used the basic human communication we seem to lose as adults. Mostly what we heard from the bunk-bedrooms was squealing, laughing and general hysteria.

Nick's cousin Marion and her husband Jean-Marc operate like a well oiled machine and before we'd realised why it had gotten so quiet all of a sudden, all four of their daughters, our two and a family friend of theirs were on the slope. Eye drops in, hand wrapped in a ball of fleece and two pairs of sunglasses on and Nick was ready to head out the door. I, on the other hand, was having heart palpitations.

Even one-eyed and single-poled Nick was arguably the most beautiful skier on the mountain. He skis with such fluid grace and power, it's a treat to watch. But this time I could barely take it. I knew what a bad wipe-out could have meant and so did he, but he never wipes out. Thing is, he's never skied mono-eyed either, so when on the second day he misjudged the distance of a girl skiing next to him on a steep slope and he fell, I nearly threw up. He was fine and it was the last run of our stay and soon afterward that particular stress was over. On to the next one: his good eye. But I'll save that for the next post.

On the way up to Allevard I had told him that if he further injured himself, any reasonable person would cry "What?!" when I said, "Well he was skiing and -" because it was retarded. (Sorry Sarah Palin, but sometimes that word is just right.) But I have to tell you, on the chairlift at the end of that first day Nick said that it had been one of the best days of his life (ranking below the day he married me, I'm sure he meant to add). So yes, it was retarded, but I guess he knew what he needed, and although he was wrecked at the end of both days, I think he'd do it all again in a heartbeat. I just hope he doesn't.

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What's wrong with this picture??

Wouldn't know it from the photo... but he's still a mess. I don't know anyone else who would have been out there in his condition, and it makes me want to scream. But it's also why I married him.

Three Weeks Today (written March 7th)

If Saturday was a bad day, Sunday was a good one. Nick and I spent two hours hiking in the hills behind the house, through the eucalyptus groves and by the glowing mimosas humming with bees. Sounded like an L.A. freeway. It was the best two hours we'd enjoyed together in the last three weeks. At a guess joining the family for a walk on the beach after lunch was what laid him out for part of the late afternoon, but by the time we finished dinner he had enough energy to win three of four rounds of Mah-Jong.

Not sure how we avoided it, but jet lag seems to have skipped us this time. Cayenne and Acacia have been rock stars: game for anything we suggest doing, gobbling down the delicious food Ilona and Michel whip up and playing fairly quietly the rest of the time (something not lost on Sam, Nick's 94 yr old grandfather). It's just one of the many things I've been thankful for lately. I can't tell you how grateful I was for the weather in Denver. Nick shivered for much of the first two weeks after the accident. Durango weather was in the 40s and 50s but we had a fire blazing in the hearth 24 hrs a day and any time we left the house for another doctor's appointment, he'd shake the whole way there. So when we got to sunny, wonderfully warm and windless Denver, I was keenly aware of our good fortune.

When we were driving over Wolf Creek Pass returning from our first trip to the eye doc, we passed by a nasty wreck. A semi had lost control and instead of going off the ledge at the approaching hairpin turn, he made a sharp left across the oncoming traffic lane, flipping over and smashing head-on into an SUV. When we drove by the lit-up scene Nick shuddered. I thought it was because of the horror of it all, but he said seeing wreckage literally made him feel cold. It seems part of the reason he was so wet and then freezing while waiting for rescue in the snow was when he was hanging upside-down strapped into his seat, a broken fuel line was emptying itself all over him. Good thing G didn't decide to celebrate their survival with a cigarette!

(Actually G was conscious of the line, because he called out, "Hold on! That's the fuel line," when Nick went to grab it to hoist himself upright. Whoops!)

Pix

This is Nick's 'before' picture. Taken at the hospital, it was before the bruising and swelling fully showed up, but this is horrible enough, methinks.

This was taken last night. Much better.

These are the in-between photos, taken with Nick's grandfather, Sam. Looking forward to the after shots...

Saturday March 5th

One of life's ironic cruelties is that when you're stressed, your immune system - right when you really need it - gets compromised. I haven't gotten sick in years, but I managed to find a banging sinus/head cold that kept my brain feeling like it was going to burst out of my skull for most of last week. My biggest worry was that I would pass it on to Nicolas, whose system was far more taxed. With his cracked sternum, blowing his nose is painful, coughing is searing and sneezing is so bad it comes out almost like a cry. Those of you who've ever broken a rib know what that's like. He can actually worsen the fracture if he does anything too forceful, so I really didn't want to share this cold.

I was hopeful I was getting better (and that Nick had avoided it) when my ears popped as we were going over Wolf Creek Pass a few days ago. I'd been trying to blow them open for days, and it finally worked, which was fortunate for poor Nick because I'd been singing as though I had headphones on. Tuesday in Denver was the first day without the pounding headache so by Friday I was sure we were out of the woods, but Nick has been sneezing and blowing his nose all day today. I feel so bad for him because he's already so uncomfortable.

He looks really good on the outside. The healing's been amazing and if he wears dark sunglasses you might think he just sprained a finger or something. The gashes have all healed remarkably well (took the stitches out of the to-the-bone cut in his ankle this morning), the sutures in his tongue have been removed and he speaks much better, his legs are not black and blue anymore, his face has lost all swelling and his hand about 60%, although it's still a funky colour.

But the way he looks belies the way he feels. His busted teeth make eating very painful, with or without the broken jaw. His eyes (both) are so sore he has them shut for much of the time. His grey hand aches. And most of his energy is being sapped by a body trying to heal itself. It physically pains my heart to see my strong man hunched and silently hurting. But I think he's just biding his time. He knows this will pass, and he's surviving the second phase of this nightmare. I'm looking forward to the day we fully wake up from it.

Speedy Recovery

So here's the thing about overtaking another car: If the speed limit is 60mph and you'd like to go 63 or so, but the car in front of you is going 58, you'll probably have to speed a bit to get past him - especially because passing someone usually alerts him to his turtley speed, and he'll often step on the gas while you're passing instead of after you're safely out of the oncoming traffic lane. Because of this phenomenon I was pretty gun shy about overtaking on our latest trip to Denver, seeing as my last ticket was still staring at me from the dashboard.

On our way home on Wednesday, Nick and I were talking about the mechanics of passing (as you do when you spend a total of 28 hours in the car together over the period of about a week) when a long, clear passing zone presented itself, and we'd been putt-putting behind a black SUV and a pick-up truck, both going 58mph, for a koon's age.

"Gun it." So I did, passing both cars and getting back into my lane well before the oncoming car zipped by. I didn't go over 65mph, but I was aware I had to speed to do it.

"Perfect pass, babe. Textbook."

"Yeah, knowing my luck -"

Flashing lights. QUE? Flashing lights coming from the black SUV.

I actually laughed because what are the chances of THAT?? Unbelievable! Then got annoyed because there was no reason to have been pulled over. Copper said I was speeding (didn't mention my speed though because he knew it was negligible) and that he pulled me over because the pass occurred around a (wide open, unobscured) slight turn in the road.

As you might have surmised, it's very hard to me to keep my mouth shut, but I resisted the temptation to say, "Then why is this a passing zone? Hello!" Anyway, the officer seems to have used the whole thing as an excuse to check my papers or something, which were all in order, and I did not get a ticket. Very glad of this because I would have fought it, and that's the last thing I need to be doing these days.

What I needed to be doing was getting home to our girls, making dinner, doing a few loads of laundry and packing for France, which Nick thought would be a fun thing to do the next day.

Before all this happened, we had booked spring break flights to go visit Nick's family near Nice and Grenoble, but I'd assumed that all that had changed. Wednesday's post-op visit revealed Nick is still not detecting any light, so the chances of his recovering any vision are now close to nil. They're giving it another ten days and if it's still the same we'll begin prepping for a glass eye. Nicolas saw no reason to sit around those ten days when we could be in France. And changing our "free" awards tickets would have cost $600 anyway, so a no-brainer, right?

So I'm writing from St. Raphael, after a wonderful meal of lentil soup, salad with gorgonzola dressing and Ilona's fabulous chocolate mousse. Nick can't eat salad yet, but he's upstairs right now heading to la-la-land a happy camper. Seeing family is good for the soul.

PS to Jarrett: Happy Birthday, Bro!

Two Huge Guys Crawled out of This

Photos taken by the rescuers, after G and Nick were on their way to hospitals.

No News is Good News?

Well, the retinal specialist went into Nick's eye this morning and removed about 90% of the blood. The doc still couldn't see much, but thinks the retina looked fine. That's good news and bad, because the retina is one of the few things you can fix (sometimes), and if it's not the retina, it's likely (but not necessarily) to be something unfixable. The key will be if Nick can detect light once his eye heals from all this, and that can take a few weeks.

The lens was either shattered or was thrust out of the gash in his eye during impact. So if he does have some sense of light now that most of the blood was sucked out, a lens replacement (same operation as for cataracts, I believe) can be done to actually see something. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

The good news is that Nick was well sedated during the vitrectomy (aware but not uncomfortable) so not nearly as bad as we were led to believe. It was "the best I've felt in two weeks," according to my beautiful pirate.

It was strongly suggested I go to the car wash while waiting, so you can see that your Nick is still the same Nick. Driving back in the shiny, dripping-inside-and-out Land Rover I noticed that directly behind the Surgery Center was a Hobby Lobby. What are the chances of that? Nothing like the 80%-off aisle to help focus the daze, and I found a couple of little things to make the girls' day when we get back tomorrow.