Well folks… it was terrible. Weather was awful. Doreen and Paulette were not very nice to me. Snow sucked. OK… I know you don’t believe me, so I’ll stop there.
Some of you are new to the online spine community and some of you have known us for years. I don’t think that I’ll be able to find the words to adequately describe this weekend. Paulette and Doreen have become such wonderful friends through the years. More than 3 years ago, I met Doreen for the first time in Straubing and I don’t think either of us imagined bombing down black diamond runs together in the years to come. (Well, maybe we didn’t bomb down the black diamonds… only Paulette and my friend Clark did that… but Doreen and I were able to bomb down the blue squares!)
It was after 1am on Friday night when we got to the room. We’d been unable to find food and didn’t know what to expect for accommodations. We open the door to a warm fire and an incredible condo. I couldn’t believe it when we went to the fridge to find all kinds of snacks, breakfast, beer, coffee, etc… YOU ROCK PAULETTE!
Both Saturday and Sunday were warm and sunny, with excellent spring snow conditions… as said in previous posts, the entire mountain was open. Paulette has a thing about skiing the same terrain, so we covered a ton of ground and had a blast. We skied until our legs were rubber, then skied some more. We’d gotten late starts both days, so we wound up closing the lifts at 4pm.
Can you imagine spending days together with spiney friends and not talking about our backs? On the third night, we did discuss spine a bit, but for the most part, we were just great friends meeting in a wonderful place for a couple of days of fun and sun and snow and food and drinks… what a blast.
Doreen and Paulette had never met face to face, but were already dear friends.
As far as the blustering about who is going to kick who’s butt on the mountain goes… I said on the first run that Paulette was way faster than me, and the only way I’d beat her down the mountain was to be more stupid than she is. I did get a chance to prove who is more stupid… I could vaguely hear her scream something about being able to go fast AND do some turns, as I was blowing by her.
A good time was had by all…. I can’t wait to do this again!
All the best,
Mark
PS. I have to say something about the appearance of all this fun and smiles and restored lives, etc. I know that there are so many here that are in horrible pain. Some will not have a chance for a recovery like ours. Some have already had a long litany of surgeries and have not found relief. I know that it can be difficult to read and hear about this. Those of you that have worked with me know that I don’t paint such a rosy picture of spine surgery. I know that I’m lucky to be where I am today and I believe that Paulette and Doreen also realize that. However, from the day that I put up the first ‘Life after Spine Surgery’ website, I constantly hear, “thank you for providing some hope” from spine patients all over the world.
Getting back to my office today, here is an excerpt from an email I received this weekend:
Quote:
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I hope you have a wonderful time in Tahoe. Please give Paulette my best. Although she does not know me, I have followed her progress from before her surgery until her video of floating on powder. Truly inspirational. Thanks again.
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While I don’t want people to hear, “come and do spine surgery and you’ll be fine”, what I do want them to hear is that for many of us there is hope. After 2 failed surgeries, I never imagined that I’d be able to live this way again. It’s been a while since I’ve stopped and looked around and said to myself, “I can’t believe that I can do these things again!”, I found myself saying that all weekend… not only for me, but for Paulette and especially for Doreen.
I don’t know if they knew, but there were times this weekend when the water running down my face was not snow. This was and incredible weekend and I feel blessed and honored to know Paulette and Doreen and so many more of you. I wish there was some way for us to bottle some of our success and share it with all of you!