I mention that I was an international athlete. I was an Alpine Ski racer to be exact. Most of us didn't get out of that sport without at least one surgery. I had 8. Of course, 3 were related to one accident. The other 5 were really just maintenance. I started having surgery when I was 18, probably because I could sign all of my own hospital intake papers and my Mom wasn't going to play a part to some guy from Texas carving me up like a turkey. I had knee pain and it just so happened that a revolutionary surgery was being perfected by a guy named Richard Steadman. The great part about it is that you are in an out with very minimal recovery time. It was surgery to ski racing in 3 weeks or less. I had 4 of these. Fortunately there was no major damage. He cut some unnecessary cartilage out, resurfaced my patellas and I was back in the race for the top rung of the podium. It was very handy. 2 years prior to the Olympics I damaged my patella. Not skiing, not jumping off of cliffs or doing some extreme anti-gravity move, but rather, dancing. Yes, dancing, to Frank Sinatra's "New York New York" in a bar in Austria. My drunk Austrian partner went to dip me and rotated me around the top of my tibia like a pepper grinder. Needless to say, my coaches were not happy and I was horrifically embarrassed. Back to the surgeon I went, where he fixed my knee, so well, that in 4 weeks, I was back to ski racing and winning my first National title. I had to. My coach made a plea to have me removed from the team and the only thing that would save me was a win. To this day, I suspect my teammates sandbagged a little to give me a boost but if you have ever met any of these women, I can guarantee they are not sandbaggers. Career saved, I continued the quest for Olympic gold.
We called those years the "Dark Ages" for reasons I won't go into now. However, in that single season we had 7 injured skiers. Each time a teammate went down, we felt the angst of it. When you do something all of your life and then are reminded that your entire life hinges on a single moment, well, it either makes you or breaks you. In my case, it broke me.
We were at a World Cup in Leukerbad, Switzerland. The course was long and very steep. The snow was firm and you picked up quite a bit speed in the last gates before the finish. I wanted a great result, needed a great result as I felt my life teetering over an abyss of Olympic champion or extreme disappointment. I was the best nationally ranked Super G skier for the United States which gave me an automatic spot on the Olympic team but it was clear that the coaching staff wanted me to earn it. So in the last 14 seconds of the race, I took a chance, let it all hang out and tragedy struck. I had loaded the back of my skis which on a steep hill can be great for jetting yourself through the finish line. Instead, I hit a small bump in the snow, hidden by flat light and my focus on the finish. It projected me in the direction of a large diameter finish post and because I was airborn, there was no correction to make.
Now, right before you hit something hard or crash your car, or see a fist coming your direction, the general 1st thought is "oh shit". So there I was, hurling toward a large stationary object with nothing but time to think of what this was going to feel like. All I could come up with was "oh shit".....and waited for death. On impact, I heard my femur crack in my ears and my entire body contracted with pain. I felt myself bend around the pole and then whip around the other side. I come to a "dead" stop for lack of a better word and assessed my injuries. Fingers and toes wiggling, check. Hands and feet moving, check. Left knee bending, check. Right knee not bending.....hmmmm. Right leg rotating inward.......why does my right leg feel shorter? Probably because internally, I had taken my right leg off by breaking my femur into 8 pieces with the top portion that remained being very short. However, I did not panic because 1: I was happy to be alive and 2: all moving parts could move, just not in the manner they used to. I was airlifted to a Swiss hospital where the extent of my injuries were determined to be a broken right femur, a broken left tibial plateau with considerable damage done to the left knee, a broken pelvis in four places including my right hip socket, mulitple fractures of my vertebrae, Spleen and Liver damage and one seriously damaged ego.
And thus began my journey to the operating room. Of course, I had my femur fixed immediately because you can't just go around with your leg hanging off. A week later, I returned to Dr. Steadman to have my knee fixed, again. He was happy to see me. I was putting his kids through college, what's not to be happy about? And I began comeback after comeback. A year later, I had the hardware removed from my femur. It hangs on my wall today as a reminder of those years. And that's where I thought my story would end, that I waited too long to tell it, and that all the angst, the comedy and the drama of those years would be lost. However, I have a new diagnosis. Post-traumatic arthritis complicated by labral tearing, bone-spurring and inflammation of none other than....wait for it.......my right hip socket. These stories will be joyously told here, for your damaged diva pleasure. Thanks for reading.
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