{"id":686,"date":"2009-11-23T00:48:42","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T07:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/?p=686"},"modified":"2010-01-12T08:15:07","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T15:15:07","slug":"friday-the-13th-kind-of-lives-up-to-its-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/paddle-trips\/friday-the-13th-kind-of-lives-up-to-its-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday the 13th Lives Up To Its Name – Kind Of"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

\"Ouch,
Ouch, ouch, and ouch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So is it foolish to kayak on Friday the 13th?<\/strong>\u00a0 I’m not superstitious, but as I was heading out to boat that morning I remember thinking how ironic it would be if there ended up being river carnage that day.\u00a0 As it turns out, I was front and center in the carnage department, but at the same time\u00a0it was relatively minor, so I’m seriously grateful to have been able to learn a lesson without totally sidelining myself for months.<\/p>\n

Anyway, here are some thoughts I’ve had about what happened:<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s easy to\u00a0get used to getting away with things.<\/h2>\n

What happened is that I ended up breaking 3 ribs when I got T-boned by the bow of someone’s kayak while they were surfing and I was coming down a wave train.\u00a0 It flipped me over and I remember thinking, ‘Holy smokes, I think I really got hurt this time’, but fortunately I was able to roll up and get over to an eddy.\u00a0 Now apparently (as I’ve heard since then) there’s\u00a0a river rule that says the upstream kayaker has right of way, but\u00a0let’s be real\u00a0–\u00a0there also has to be\u00a0an unwritten rule that says the upstream kayaker should avoid acting like a bonehead, and I know I had enough time to get out of this person’s way –\u00a0I just was being a little lax about paddling hard.\u00a0 Usually you get away with that stuff with some flips and apologies, this time I didn’t.<\/p>\n

\"Snow
Snow billows through Index as we put in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

Little mistakes can have big consequences.<\/h2>\n

I think for most kayakers it’s a lot easier to consider getting hurt and dealing with pain than it is to think about the amount of time they’ll have to take off of paddling.\u00a0 They told me six weeks and I’m hoping it’s four, but poor Fish Waidelich, who’s an amazing kayaker, dislocated his shoulder recently and is out for months – recently he was on Professor Paddle<\/a> begging people to take him down river in a raft, and (paddlers being the people they are) he got lots of offers right away.\u00a0 But seriously – from what I hear, he got hurt on a class III section, and he’s a class V paddler.\u00a0 So I guess it’s worth keeping that kind of thing in mind.\u00a0 Although at the same time, if you think too much about what can go wrong you’ll never leave the house.\u00a0 (Martha Stewart reruns, anyone? :))<\/p>\n

Your paddle group is your lifeline.<\/h2>\n

I was fortunate to be paddling with a great group of people who did everything they could to make things safer and easier.\u00a0 Everyone took the time to figure out what was going on, Brett Barton carried both his and my boat off the river and through the woods for half an hour up to the road, the guys from Peak 7<\/a> happened to come along and give us a ride up to Index, JP and Dave Morales drove me back to my house, and Dave didn’t make me feel bad about committing his afternoon to taking me to the hospital when it turned out\u00a0 I couldn’t drive.\u00a0 You seriously want to paddle with people like this.<\/p>\n

We are blessed with amazing capacity to heal.<\/h2>\n

I know most people know that, but I have to emphasize – I am completely mind-boggled at how much better I feel just over a week later.\u00a0 When I got to the hospital on Friday I could barely walk, and on Sunday I couldn’t clear my throat, even on Percocet.\u00a0\u00a0By Wednesday, however, I was off of painkillers and actually tried a slow jog (then got walloped on Facebook by my clear-thinking friends.)\u00a0 Today is nine days later and I can breathe in just fine – sneezing is not agonizing, I can run (although I’m not) and I’m just watching out for my left arm and shoulder blade, which I can tell will take longer.\u00a0 If you had told me last Sunday that I’d feel like this today, I would have snorted in disbelief – and then toppled over in agony.\u00a0 It’s truly amazing.<\/p>\n

So in the end…<\/h2>\n

I’m not trying to sound like Polyanna.\u00a0 It’s not fun to have broken ribs (other than the outpouring of sympathy, including fellow paddler Marilyn Ridings\u00a0showing up\u00a0on Sunday with a full grocery list and flowers – thanks Marilyn!)\u00a0 But who are we kidding – any time you get the opportunity to learn a potentially life-saving lesson without losing a bunch of teeth or rupturing a shoulder (the point being, obviously,\u00a0that you’d be off the river for a long time with those injuries ;) ) there’s not that much to complain about, right?\u00a0 I’m calling it good, and hoping to be smarter and better when I get back out there.<\/p>\n

\"Clear
Clear skies and fresh snow on the way back.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So is it foolish to kayak on Friday the 13th?\u00a0 I’m not superstitious, but as I was heading out to boat that morning I remember thinking how ironic it would be if there ended up being river carnage that day.\u00a0 As it turns out, I was front and center in the carnage department, but at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,1],"tags":[126,128,125,127,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}