six months

Sat, 20 Aug 2005 00:15:32 GMT

Well tomorrow marks the six-month anniversary of my accident. I've had the capability of writing this live Journal for couple months now but for what ever reasons, fear writers block, inability to put it into words, or whatever, I haven't. But I was thinking in my sleep last night that I haven't put any my experiences down and I had better do so before I lose too many of the details. I guess the most painful part of this is that shortly after the accident I imagine myself, my recovery, in a much different place than I am right now. In other words I've probably somewhere thought I'd be walking by now. No such luck though, I sit here in front of the computer without use of my hands, some of my forearms, my triceps, about half the muscles in my shoulders, and everything below my nipple line.

Sometime around December of last year Brooke and I were invited by our friends Jerod and Lindsey to join then and about a dozen others for Presidents' Day weekend in a huge rental in South Lake Tahoe. It was to be a weekend of partying and snowboarding and we were looking forward to it. At the time both Brooke and I were working quite a bit and each involved in extracurricular activities that pretty much kept us from seeing one another enough of the time. I was involved in a couple large projects at work each of which had me stressed, and at the same time I was chasing down a dream of being a firefighter by attending a firefighter Academy both Saturday and Sunday of each weekend for the first six months of the new year. Presidents week end was to be about the first time we would have together in many months.

We took Thursday February 17 off from work to pack, shop, and generally prepare for the weekend. Jerod and Lindsey picked us up early Friday morning in their new Honda element and off we were. The drive up was fun, minus all the gear that we had. I love the drive out Highway 50 towards Southlake. It has to be one of the prettier drives in California. We arrived in midday at the rental office to pick up the keys to the cabin. I guess cabin is a bit of an understatement. We showed up to the place and it was huge! Three levels, six bedrooms, four and a half baths, a gymnasium, a hot tub, a pool table, and three balconies. Over the rest of the afternoon and into the night the other guests showed up, and it was on. We were up pretty much most of the night dancing, hot tubbing, playing pool, etc.

The next day most of the House got up to go skiing and/or snowboarding, but Brooke and I decided to take the opportunity to spend some time together at this magnificent place. We had a great day.

The crew got back from a day skiing and we all began of the task of cooking a big Mexican fiesta for the evening meal. It was a wonderful taco feast with the kind of noise and energy that only a large group of friends together can create. We cleaned up the mess from dinner and got straight to work on drinking games, though we didn't stay nearly as late as the night before as everyone was pretty tired and looking for to another day of snowboarding.

I woke early Sunday the February twentieth not knowing it would be the worst day of my life. We made breakfast of eggs and bacon breakfast burritos, packed lunches, through on our ski gear, and loaded up the cars. We were staying in Southlake so decided to snowboard at heavenly Valley. Also, knowing it was a crowded weekend we drove to the Nevada side of the mountain to ski. I bought tickets for Brooke and I and immediately started getting verbal instructions on how to snowboard as it was Brooke's first day ever. We told everyone to take off and go have a good day and that we would hopefully meet up later for lunch or something.

I strapped Brooks feet into the board and we began practicing on a short gentle slope adjacent to one of the lifts. She was getting the hang of it pretty quickly so we decided to get on a lift and try her first run. We got to the top of the lift and like every beginner she crashed just as soon as we got off. So we started down the mountain and it took about an hour and a half to get back to the lodge at the bottom. Once at the lodge last year she would mind waiting for me to take one run at my pace. I mean I did have a new board and everything. So up the same lift I went, and down the same slope I came. I was having a great time carving lines with my new board until I caught an inside edge which hurtled me headfirst into the back of a mogul.

I felt my face hitting the cold snow and my body being thrown over my head by its own inertia. My head didn't move and I heard a dull crunch and felt a sharp pain in my neck. I heard my body hitting the snow on the other side, but strangely I still felt crunched up. As I laid there a began to feel numbness creeping up my feet, my lower legs, my upper legs, my arms and my chest. I was conscious and knew that I had broken my neck. My face was still somewhat covered with snow and tried to reach with my arm to wipe it clean. I could see my arm and although I was telling it to move and wipe snow all it did flop lamely. Oh fuck I thought what have I done.

Paul please pass the mic

Sun, 24 Jul 2005 20:46:11 GMT

Another glorious day here in sunny Santa Cruz. Paul and I have been working for last couple days to get my system set up under voice-recognition. So far things have been going pretty well we have a little but the trouble with the microphone recognizing every word that I say the for the most part were doing well.

The best part of this week, however, has been getting to know young ivy. She will know me as Uncle Charlie. I met IV about six weeks ago. In those six weeks she has changed quite a bit. Now she will look you directly in the eye or just watch your for a long time. She even mimics your facial expressions. Might desire for a child of my own pretty much off the charts right now.

Brooke's cousins Todd, Kerry, Carly, Caitlin, and Tatum are visiting us this weekend. Brooke has them at the beach right now, and will no doubt follow with a shopping spree.

Please forgive any errors for now, but we should notice a remarkable improvement over the next few days. Bye.

Charlie Rous

six months

Paul please pass the mic