I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful Christmas and Holiday season. I spent a relaxing Christmas at our home in Chilliwack with David’s family. It was wonderful to be surrounded by loved ones and to read all the well wishers coming in through e-mail, facebook, website guest book, media, etc. Thank you to everyone for their support – it will be needed to help me through this road to recovery.
Torch Bearer
First, the exciting news. John Furlong called me on Monday, December 21st to offer me the last available spot along to Torch Relay. Obviously, I accepted enthusiastically. Therefore, on February 9th, somewhere in New Westminster Vancouver I’ll be carrying the torch 300metres on its journey towards the opening ceremonies.
Knee Update
Again, let’s start with the good news. The pain and swelling in my knee has reduced dramatically which has been good to see (and a colourful process with the bruising!). Now, the bad news, the MRI results are in and after I spoke with my soon to be surgeon Dr. Litchfield the dirty truth came out. I have completely severed the ACL, MCL, and PCL. The LCL is also in bad condition and may need to be replaced but they won’t know for sure until they get inside my knee. The Tibia Plateau is fractured and my meniscuses need work. My IT Band has also come off at the insertion point just below my knee. What this means is that I must have dislocated my knee during my crash in Val D’Isere and there isn’t a whole lot more damage I could have done. The good news, they are great and putting knees back together!
My surgery will likely take around 5 hours and will happen in London, Ontario. I’ll be staying in the hospital for 1 to 2 nights then sticking around the area for about a week. The date for the surgery isn’t set yet but it I’ll know more soon.
Ok, that’s it for the bad news and here is the best news of all; the knee will only get better from here.
I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!!!!!!!!! May it be filled with Smiles and Good Health.
First off, thank you for all the e-mails of support and sympathy.
As many of you have heard by now, I suffered a season ending injury yesterday morning to my left knee in the DH training run at Val D’Isere. This followed the loss of my teammate, Larisa Yurkiw, to virtually the same injury the day before. At first they thought I had severed all 4 ligaments in my knee, but now it appears I may still have one. In the coming weeks the MRI, Doctor visits, and consultations will give me more details and I will be able to update you then with more information.
In the short term, my job is to try and reduce the swelling as quickly as possible, work on range of motion, and do my best to have my muscles in the best shape possible before surgery. Since the injury is so severe, I was not a candidate to do the surgery soon after the fall. My reconstruction will likely take place in approximately 3 weeks.
As many of you may share my broken heart, it is at a time like this that I feel at a loss for words. I accepted the possibility of such an injury many years ago in order to be able to ski with as little inhibitions as possible. It is for that reason that the injury itself saddens me, but I knew and accepted it was a very real risk. However, losing my chance to start in Whistler is hard to understand and accept. In my gut, I truly believed I was going to walk away from Whistler with a medal – sitting on the sidelines will be a challenging alternative.
Although it’s hard to see silver linings at times like these, I am lucky I wasn’t injured any further. I was blessed with very strong knees and I knew if I ever did anything to them it would take a big crash – which it did. Sadly, I almost recovered twice before going down. I won’t go into much detail since even writing about the crash itself brings tears to my eyes. I did watched the crash last night – I figured I’d get that experience out of the way, and start my recovery process right away both mentally and physically. I take comfort in knowing I felt good on my skis yesterday, I had fun in warm up and I was challenging to the line to see what I could do come race day. I had some beautiful jumps that made me smile, and carved some turns that felt fantastic. I will try and remember those moments, before the crash, and know that I still love what I do.
Upon leaving my team, I joked with them saying this may have actually extended my career since now more than ever I have unfinished business on the hill. I also made sure the girls knew how much I believed in them, their abilities, and wished for nothing more than for them to find joy on their skis (which we all know leads to fast skiing as well). With how well my training was going and with how much fun I was having on my skis I will truly miss skiing over this next stretch.
In Val D’Isere I was taken very good care of by the hills medical group (who know the Canadians far too well) and by my team’s Doctor Tim, physio Gen, and all the coaches, staff, and athletes. Heck, I was eating a crepe, on morphine, with a beer by mid afternoon – they certainly knew how to take care of me!
I’m writing this from my airplane seat with Lufthansa, half the staff knew who I was and a few had seen my crash on the news last night. So here too, I am being well taken care of. However, home is where my heart is and where I know I’m looking forward to a massive hug from David.
I can’t really talk about Lake Louise and the opening World Cup races without also talking about the passing of my mother in law, MegAnne Ford. Although I hadn’t intended on letting everyone know about her passing, I simply broke down in the finish area after the final training run unable to finish the interview I had started; I had to explain what was happening. My husband David drove to Calgary to fly to Victoria to see his ailing mom, but unfortunately he missed her passing by about an hour. Her death left us both shaken and stricken with grief. I was happy when David returned so we could share in this grief and support each other threw it as best we could. David did an amazing job of supporting me through these races; given his emotional state he was truly remarkable.
Racing:
Racing was certainly challenging as I did my best to control the grief that was always so close to the surface. Friday I found myself quite numb to it all but by Sunday, at least on the hill, I felt more like myself and as though MegAnne was there with me in some way. It was a solid weekend of racing finished 13th, 13th, and 11th but it was a very strong weekend for the team. The weekend was certainly highlighted by Emily Brydon’s two podiums and in the Super G when all six girls starting the race finished in the top 30. It was wonderful to see the team rise to the occasion and to know that all our hard work this summer is paying off. Knowing I finished 11th on the day of the SG with a costly mistake at the bottom is extremely promising as well, and finishing 13th in the 2nd DH with ice blinding one eye for the bottom half of the course was also a strong indication of how I’m skiing. Even with a few curve balls I’m in the mix.
I was asked in an interview how I thought this weekend would help me during the Olympics in February as a type of ‘trial run’. I answered by saying that the Olympics is a massive undertaking that can throw any number of curve balls our way. This week, was certainly filled with such curve balls and that will only make me stronger moving forward. I also saw my team step up in ways I don’t even think we expected – it was great to see and very promising.
After the races:
About an hour after getting in the car to leave Lake Louise, when the day’s race adrenaline wore off, I broke down into deep sobs. The grief had been so strong but mostly kept just below the surface for the weekend. It was in the car that I finally let myself feel everything that had been there all along. As MegAnne’s family and support network told me though, it’s these tears that will carry her into the next world. David and I hit the road driving back to Chilliwack on Sunday after the race then rose early Monday morning for the funeral in Victoria. MegAnne was a pioneer in many aspects in her life and that was continued in her death with a green burial (she is one of the first in Canada to have a green burial – as of now Victoria is still the only place that offers this as an option). It was a beautiful ceremony performed by women who made up a large part of MegAnne’s spiritual network. I, along with 7 other women, carried MegAnne to where she will rest. The ceremony included some chants, shared stories about MegAnne, and many tears as we said goodbye. To end the ceremony everyone had one flower which was crushed and placed on her body before being lowered. I would encourage anyone who is interested to look into Green burials, it was remarkably spiritual and, at least for MegAnne, it certainly honoured her connection with the earth and it’s energy.
What’s Happening Now:
I am now at the end of a long trip back to Europe. Going; Abbotsford-Calgary-Frankfurt-Munich-Shuttle to Innsbruck-then Driving to Sulden, Italy; it made for a long day. I’m now hoping to get back to some normal sleep patterns and a few days of good training before we hit the road for Val D’Isere’s World Cup events next week.
Thank you to everyone for your e-mails, support and love. I hope you all know how much I cherish family, friends, and the network that I find myself so blessed to be a part of.
Recent Media Links:
This was an article printed after my first training run in Lake Louise:
overy. 
