Better not come in threes…

After the close call in my last blog entry, I drove to upper Michigan to join the girls on Saturday for my nephew Jacob’s birthday party. On Sunday, myself, the father-in-law, my brother-in-law and my other 10-year-old nephew Alex went skiing. Alex was doing wonderfully all day long, maybe fell once, and it was more of a losing balance while standing still type thing.

Well, we were going to meet all the rest of the family at a restaurant at the top of the slopes for lunch before we headed back to Chicago. We had time for one more run. We decided on a black diamond run that we had hit all day long. It was an S curve with banked sides through the middle of some trees. Alex had gone down this run probably 6-7 times during the course of 4 hours. Well, this final run, he didn’t fare so well.

Alex lost control and crashed into the trees, badly. He broke his leg in two places, broke his thumb, and hurt his knee bad enough that he had to have surgery to restore blood flow to the rest of his leg. He’ll be in a wheelchair for three weeks, and then could possibly be on crutches after that, if his thumb is healed enough that is. I feel so bad for him. It was the ‘one last run’ and it cost him a lot of pain and rehab. Keep him in your thoughts for a speedy recovery, and no permanent damage. Kids shouldn’t have to deal with this much pain…