Half-day getaway ends in surgery

As I mentioned last week, I have been away from my post for a few

days because I decided to have some surgery.

Tummy tuck? Nope. New snoot? Uh uh. Thunder thigh-ectomy?

Negative. Everybody does those.

I wanted something different. It all began the weekend before

last, in Seattle, which is way up there in the upper left corner,

just below where they say “oot” for out and “hoose” for house. I love

Seattle. The coffee, the seafood, Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square

-- what a great city.

I was there for a quick business trip with a good friend, Mark

Tyson, who is a Newport Beach entrepreneur and also happens to be an

avid skier, as I was. Our business done on Friday, we decided to

squeeze in a half-day of skiing on Saturday before heading back to

Orange County, which is in the lower left corner.

Most of you have already figured out where this is going. I wish I

had some thrill-packed scenario for you -- some heart-stopping tale

about a double diamond slope littered with towering rocks and 40-foot

drops.

I could tell you I was skiing like the wind until the moment I

lost it all and started to tumble down an impossibly steep slope

end-over-end, finally sliding to a stop, unconscious and barely

breathing. On the other hand, I could tell you the truth.

What really happened was the shortest, most uneventful ski

adventure in the history of ski adventures. Let’s put it this way.

From the time Mark and I pulled into the parking lot, jumped out of

the car and said, “Yippee. We’re here!” -- to the time I was doing

the “descent of shame” wrapped in a bright yellow blanket in the ski

patrol’s sliding sarcophagus -- was exactly 26 minutes. You have to

be a skier to appreciate how nearly impossible and truly pathetic

that is.

That’s just 26 minutes, 1,560 seconds to be exact, to complete the

following tasks: park the car, schlep the gear to the lodge, buy the

lift tickets, pull on your boots, strap on your skis, get on the

chair, get off the chair, do a face plant. Then, wait for the ski

patrol to find you, splint you, toss you into the sled of shame and

tow you down the mountain. Do you understand what kind of timing that

takes? There is absolutely no margin for error.

Double diamond slope? I’ll give you diamonds. There were only two

choices at the top of the first chair, both beginner slopes. We

started down the one called something like “Little Debbie’s Fun Run.”

Mark took off slightly ahead of me and headed down the hill in a

series of easy turns, which anyone who has one brain, two skies and

the coordination of a Panda bear on Prozac should have been able to

handle, which apparently excludes me.

The edges of the run were a little soft, almost slush in places. I

made a few quick turns to work my way back to the center of the run.

On the last turn, I remember watching the tip on my downhill ski dive

into the slush. That’s a bad thing. I tried to jerk it free, but the

ice grabbed it, like a vice. My leg, oblivious to the catastrophe

unfolding beneath it, kept turning, which is a worse thing. When my

ski boot popped loose, I heard a loud craaack that sounded exactly

like a wooden baseball bat connecting with a Randy Johnson fastball,

which is something you don’t hear often, in baseball or skiing.

I braced myself for the landing, but was surprised when it didn’t

hurt a bit. First, I tried the happy face mode. “Maybe that “crack”

wasn’t my leg,” I told myself. “Maybe it was the binding or a boot

buckle. Yeah, that’s it. A boot buckle!” As soon as I put about four

grams of weight on my left leg, we were done with the happy face

mode. I saw stars, then a few galaxies, then just a little bit of the

edge of the Milky Way. The ski patrol was there in a flash.

They had my leg boxed up and shrink-wrapped and the rest of me in

the sissy sled faster than you can say “dweeb.” When Mark found me

and my new medi-pals, he was badly conflicted between shock, worry

and trying to keep a straight face, which he did much better than I

would have. As we worked our way down Little Debbie’s, someone

decided that two ski patrollers,

Mark, and the large yellow lump in the sissy sled just wasn’t a

big enough entourage. They quickly dispatched two snowmobiles, one in

the lead and one behind, to make sure that every living being within

half a mile could watch the yellow lump with the leg-in-a-box being

dragged down the mountain. It was the first time I really appreciated

the value of wearing a helmet.

Everyone at the first-aid station was great, including an EMT

named Tom, who grew up in Costa Mesa in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. It was

just like old times, until they tried to take off my left boot, which

was very exciting and not like any other times I can recall.

Thus began an 18-hour odyssey of emergency rooms, x-ray machines,

all-night pharmacies and a hotel at the airport as we waited for our

flight home the next morning -- all of which fell to Mark Tyson, who

performed way, way beyond the call of duty.

Try juggling a rental car, luggage, ski equipment, and a

wheelchair filled with a large ex-mayor with a shrink-wrapped leg.

Back home, another good friend, Bill McMaster, took over. At times

like this, friends are very valuable. But when you have athletic

skills like mine, friends who are prominent orthopedic surgeons are

extra special handy, underline, bold-face, with asterisk.

By Tuesday morning, Bill had me under the knife and under the

ether, as he nipped a little here, tucked a little there and then

snapped it all together with some really big titanium screws. You

should see the x-rays. Totally awesome. I look like an ad for

TruValue Hardware.

So there you have it.

This ski season is done, for me at least. And you may, or may not,

see me out there when the next one rolls around. I gotta go. Sort of.