Whiplash Smile

Ahh, that title.  Not only is it the title of my favorite Billy Idol album  (affiliate link) but it definitely applied to our vacation.  This was our 4th trip to Traverse City and by far our most turbulent.

We paddled our first full day and thought we'd launch from a new to us site...the Old Mission Bay.  We got everything ready to roll and launched from the beach to a glassy bay.  We marveled at the crystal clear waters that morphed to dreamy blue and finally a foreboding black that was still clear as far as your paddle.  While the paddle out seemed to take forever to reach the end of the bay, it felt like I was paddling through molasses.  When we got out to Lake Michigan, you could see the different currents going from slightly wavy to a light chop.  It was nothing we hadn't encountered before.  The Mr set a pretty good pace and I was keeping up.  Thing is, I have no rudder on my kayak and he's got a nice fin to give him some direction.  When you paddle, you tend to set your sights on a landmark and paddle toward it.  We were both eyeing the same outcropping which seemed like it never got closer.  When it finally did, I thought I recognized it as the little "tree island" that was close to the Old Mission Lighthouse.  It had crossed my mind earlier in the paddle "how cool would it be to paddle there" but I thought it was on the other side of the peninsula.  Turns out it was on top and we just found it.

I burst into tears because I was so proud of what we'd just accomplished.  I had no idea how far we just paddled but we'd gotten pretty battered the last bit of the journey so we felt pretty triumphant.  The winds kicked up and we ate our paddling snack on our boards.  I'm sure the people at the lighthouse thought we were nuts and yeah, we were but we had no choice but to paddle back.  As we headed on the side back down, I was already exhausted.  My shoulders hurt so bad from trying to keep up and then having no real break at the lighthouse meant it was going to be a rough paddle back in the best of conditions.  What I was contending with was a rudderless yak that should've had the advantage with the waves behind it but there was a horrific undertow.  This meant for every one stroke I should've been able to take, took 4 strokes and that was to keep me from spinning mercilessly in a circle much less making any forward progress.  I finally broke down crying because I was getting sucked backward away from the Mr and these were the conditions for the entire paddle back.

I had to take the Mr up on his offer to put a tow line on the yak because otherwise, I was going to get sucked out somewhere in the middle of Lake Michigan which people don't realize is like an ocean.  There are waves, currents, undertows, riptides and all of the regular things except big sharks and salt.  As he tried to tie me, I had to paddle furiously to attempt to stay even with him.  I was exhausted.  He mistakenly thought he could hook me up and I could take a rest.  Nope.  My goal was to not have to have him even feel me back there but he could instantly feel what I was dealing with.  We had some seriously close calls that had us both terrified and completely exhausted.  As we got within 200 feet of the bay, the line snapped.  We had no choice but to be on our own and he felt instant relief when he got there.  I didn't.  We still had a good 20-30 minute paddle until we hit the beach.  While it was mild on top, the current was still underneath and it would sometimes flip me completely backward at which point I would paddle backward while making forward progress toward the beach.  The last hour of the paddle, both of my shoulders were popping in and out of the socket.  Not popping like that cute little old age popping sound when you are working out, I'm talking between that and Riggs popping his dislocated shoulder back into place on the door frame.  When we hit the beach, I wanted to throw the paddle in the trash and leave it all there for someone else.  We both declared we were never paddling again this year after that.  I couldn't raise my arms to grab a glass or point for two days.  It sucked.  A check online showed we paddled just over 8 miles, our longest ever in more ways than one.

But then the Mr's birthday came along and paddling on Crystal Lake which was perfectly glassy sounded like a good idea since we were both healed up.

Well, of course halfway through the winds shifted and it was a bumpy ride back.  Thankfully no undertow to suck me back so I was able to use the waves coming against me to leverage some paddle power off their crest.  It still was exhausting and then we really were done with paddling.

That was all bad enough...here's where we get to the whiplash part.

It was our last night and we were home while there was still light.  We got in the hot tub to soothe our muscles and we laughed as I ungracefully slid into the hot tub for the umpteenth time.  Between the dolphin skin-like texture of the hot tub edge and the last minute pair of dude swim trunks, I had to bring because I couldn't find my bathing suit bottoms meant it was always a slippery entry.  When our time was up, the Mr said he could get out first and help me out and I said that was okay.  How I wished I'd listened.  As I swung my foot over the hot tub, I felt like I didn't have a good stance on either side.  I knew I was in between the two sets of steps going in and as I tried to steady myself, the steps kicked out from under me and I fell backward hitting the stairs, wooden deck and finally my head on the ground.  The Mr stood up watching me helplessly and the last thing he saw was my head bouncing hard off the ground and back into it.  It's funny exactly how many thoughts can go through one's head in about 4 seconds.  As I saw the roof and sky as I fell backward, I thought "wow, I haven't seen this perspective in like 20 years.  This is going to suck.  I wonder what part of me is going to hit what.  Wow, I had to look like Rikki Rockett falling out of his drum set like in the Talk Dirty to Me video, I bet that was pretty funny looking."

*crash*

(White arrow shows the stairs that slipped on the leaves they were on and red shows where I ended up.  If I hadn't turned mid-fall, I would've hit on my spine the bottom wooden stair.)

I felt an instant headache, a tingling in the back of my head and a weird sensation I couldn't quite identify.  The Mr ran over to me asking me over and over if I was okay.  I started laughing which hurt intensely but I said that had to look pretty funny and he assured me it wasn't.  I felt like someone had sucker punched me in the back of the head.  Actually the back of the neck.  He helped me up and said he was going to Google concussion symptoms as he helped me inside.  I did the same and when I saw pressure in the head, that was the sensation I couldn't pinpoint.  Pressure.  He grabbed some acetaminophen to help with the pain and swelling which several websites said was suggested but definitely not ibuprofen in case there was internal bleeding.  He had me lay down to rest and told me he would be continually quizzing me on the details of the accident.  After thirty minutes, I felt better as far as the thumping in my head and the pressure but the stiffness was setting in.  We went to the fire pit and made some smores.  We only had that night and I wasn't ruining it due to my accident.  As my head started to feel like a bobblehead where I couldn't hold it up well on my own, I started thinking about actress Natasha Richardson who fell on "soft snow", was joking and talking through a headache and refused medical treatment.  Six hours later she was gone due to internal bleeding on something coined "talk and die."  That freaked me out so we went inside and called our insurance nurse.  She asked the Mr a series of questions about my behavior and symptoms and I seemed to pass that with flying colors though he was told to watch me for a period of 6 hours, wake me in the middle of the night and if symptoms get worse, take me to a doctor.  I felt better and we set another fire in the pit and enjoyed a late dinner.  I got up in the middle of the night for a wee so the Mr knew I was still alive.

The next few days sucked because as the pain/stiffness in my upper back, neck and side of my face got worse and a quick check showed I had every symptom of whiplash.  I'd been a passenger in two car accidents so I knew what that felt like and this was the worst case I've had.  I couldn't even turn in bed without holding the back of my head because I couldn't support the weight of my own head.  Though I'm grateful I didn't have a huge knot on the head, I knew landing on your neck could be equally disastrous.  (Though I did crack my head on the huge lipped headboard earlier in the stay so it was not a good head trip for me!)  Frankly, I'm thankful to be alive after all of that!  I think of how if I hadn't instinctively turned to my left as I fell, letting my knee and butt take the brunt of things initially, it could've been my spine that hit directly on the wooden deck platform and I don't even want to think about that.  This is on top of the leg injury that had me hobbling the whole time which is taking a helluva time healing up.

What I learned from all of this?  I'm lucky AF.  Lucky things didn't take a turn not once, twice but three times between one treacherous paddle that had us both terrified and two head injuries that had me seeing stars.  I'm lucky that I have someone who didn't hesitate to be my rudder both literally and figuratively in times of hardship.  I thank God for him and his quick thinking in all situations.

Ever had a head trauma (or two) or close call on the water?

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