Snowboarding this season is over. In my case it didn't amount to much since I had to enter hospital on the second day in the afternoon. Everyone on the TYPO3 snowboard tour 2005 knows this, but for those of you who don't, here is what happened:

Basically I fell by accident from a medium-high decent onto the slope with legs first. According to witnesses I travelled at a rather good speed and couldn't reduce it much before sliding over the edge from where the fall was around 3 meters to the ground. When hitting the ground my body bent together, I hit my ski-googles with my right knee and my back suffered a so called compression injury. At first my sight was disturbed but after some time it normalized. Now I just look like someone who lost a fist fight...

Worse it was with my back. That turned out to be the main concern on the hospital where a fracture on the L3 vertebrae was discovered. The injury matches what is referred to as a compression injury on this website (also see the Xray here).

From there I was lying down 2 days in bed at the hospital to "stabilize" and after that a "drei-punkt-mieder" has been mounted on my upper body so I cannot bend my spine over. I have to wear this for 3 months, then supposedly I will receive some training and I should be ready for next years snowboard tour :-)

All of this sounds pretty scary and it was for a while. I mean when Oberartz Dr. Markus Wuttke looks you in the eyes and say "This is serious" you definitely take his word for it! So it has been quite a comfort being a christian and know this short, earthly life is just a weak reflection of a perfect eternity. But naturally we think it should not end already or too soon. Luckily my injury has neither paralyzed me nor does it seem to bring any permanent medical conditions. But that is yet to see whether I recover fully. You can fold your hands for that if you believe.

Being in hospital also meant that my home transportation was taken care of by the danish public health ensurance. Basically I was taken by an ambulance from Niederstassehof to Munich where I was driven directly to the plane, carried on board, lying down all the flight on top of 10 laid down seats, carried out again and setting foot on danish ground first when the ambulance arrived at Hvidovre Hospital.

Generally the trip was very boring. Especially listening to german radio in the dark trunk of an Austrian ambulance while waiting for the delayed flight from Denmark. Other scary moments included when the two austrian ambulance guys were asked by the Danish nurse to carry me feet-first up into the air-craft from the narrow ladder in the behind of the MD-80: They had the posture more of an american donut-eating policeman than a fitness instructor. It didn't comfort me more to hear the little guy mubling "Help me, Help me" to the nurse during those 20 seconds when I was in a 60 degrees head-down position being carried up into the air-craft. I still shiver from the thought.

For some reasons even the smallest gestures made my day on the flight home. For instance the kind care from the cute swedish SAS flight-attendant who offered me not only one delicate piece of chokolade but two and even a bag of candy; I mean for free! These days you don't get much for free on air-travels, especially not when they are branded (ironically) "snowflake"...

At Hvidovre I was given a single-room for an hour and after the quick examination of a doctor I was sent home - in a regular cab. The next day I was at the hospital again, having an X-ray taken. The doctors told me to come back in three months after wearing my "drei-punkt-mieder". Their prescription basically was to go back to work, to stay active and eat healthy food. There is nothing I can do to speed up the healing of the bone in my back. Just wait.

So here I am, diagnosed "Back to work" from day 1, though insisting on some level of fair hypokondria meaning that I deserve at least one DVD movie every day for the first week... :-)

Welcome to 2005 everyone, it will be a great year, right!

- kasper