For a brief moment, just after I hit the tree, I had this feeling that I would probably not snowboard again this season. I quickly pushed that thought away though, because no, hell no, that just can’t happen… it’s too unthinkable. My knee hurt pretty bad and I could feel myself slipping into shock, so I flipped myself over with my head on the downhill side to keep the blood in my brain. Man, that was stupid! I couldn’t believe what had just happened, but here I was laying face up in the snow fighting to stay conscious with an extremely acute pain in my left knee.
“You ok?” Derek called somewhere from outside the trees.
“Uh, yeah, I just need to sit on it for a bit,” I managed weakly, “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Not wanting the embarrassment of being hauled down the mountain on a snowmobile I brought myself up to my knees and began to pack snow around the knee that had recently been bent in a very unnatural way. Dammit, I can’t have the ski patrol take me away!
After a few minutes of experimentation I was able to put some weight on it and coasted my way out of the trees and into the clear where Derek was waiting. He just happened to have a plastic bag full of Ibuprofen in his coat and insisted I take four of them. I guess I’m lucky to have had everything I needed at the time: cold stuff and Ibuprofen. Well I guess I could have used an orthopedic surgeon or maybe a steel knee, but considering the circumstances I was doing pretty well.
I was able to make it the rest of the way down under my own power, though I took the easy trails just in case. My knee had stopped hurting unless I tried to turn it in some way but I was starting to feel much more optimistic about my outlook. Maybe I’ll be back here in a couple of weeks, maybe I just sprained it a bit?
The doctor at the Urgent Care seemed positive when he came into the room. He’d looked at the X-rays and told me that he was pretty sure I hadn’t blown out my knee. That’s a good sign, I thought. He then wanted to have a look at my knees to see what the damage was. He seemed in a good mood, and with a smile kept telling me things were looking good as he would gently push or bend some part of my knees. He then held the inside of my left ankle and gently pushed on the outside of my left calf, and the smile he’d been wearing suddenly turned into one of those frozen smiles with wide eyes as i felt a very weird sensation in my leg. It would have been funny if it wasn’t my leg he was experimenting with, but I made light of it anyway and said, “I don’t like that look, tell me it isn’t that bad.”
“I think you’ve completely torn your MCL,” he said, and then told me I should contact an orthopedic surgeon to have it fixed.
Suck.
Well I guess I have to just accept it and live with whatever the consequences are. It will probably involve surgery so I’ll be off the mountain for what, three weeks maybe? Yes I know its wishful thinking, but just let me do it ok? Its too depressing otherwise.