This is moment number SIX.

The mountain bike accident.

Note: hum, there's a bit of blood involved here, so if you're faint of heart. don't read on please.

When I was nineteen, I got into mountain biking a bit more. My brother was into it, and he was a road biker as well. I was road biking a lot, going to school and back. 100k a week... I loved it so mtn biking was the next cool thing to try.

I got the old bike of my brother [funny, cus he's my younger brother]. It was too big for me, but I didn't know what that could possibly result in at the time. I rode with my bro, and my two guy friend, in town, and in the hills close to my town. It was great! I loved the pain, deep breaths, rolling fast between obstacles and all.

Then one day, I was riding with Chris, I felt so good that I was actually keeping up with him, the 6' tall dude who was in great shape!

We were bombing down this hill very fast and next thing you knew, I hit this rock and flew my best superman flight ever! Up and over the handlebars, landing on my face! I sat there for a moment, out of breath from the crash and felt the right side of my face all numb. I look at my hand and my shirt. Full of blood. I was not panicking just yet but was wondering what was going on. then I felt my lip. On the right side, it was kind of hanging in a weird way. Then the panic hit! I started calling for Chris, louder and louder! and he came, finally. I was crying, asking if it was bad... He couldn't speak, His eyes as big as 25 cents. I realized it wasn't good at all and asked him if we should call an ambulance. He said yes, and other guys came running to us. He yelled to them to go get an ambulance asap and they did.

Chris and I then walked an hour in the woods back to where the ambulance could get. He held me as I was kind of wobbly, like if I had been pretty drunk he later said. He also later told me I was asking him about every 5 minutes if he had called an ambulance. Like my memory reset in every 5 minutes chunks. Weird.

They put me on the board. asked my name, took me a while to come up with an answer, and what day it was. I said Tuesday. We were Sunday! They rushed me to the hospital...Chris was fighting hard not to cry and I was trying to be somewhat comforting saying not so funny things like, I hope you still like me as lady Frankenstein. He tried to smile...

At the hospital, they did all the test. No fractures on my skull! Not even my jaw. wow! how f'in lucky am I????! Then i had to wait, a long, long, long time for the surgeon. In the waiting room, I was sitting in this wheel chair, and passerby asked if I had been in a motorbike accident. Ah! I guess it must have looked pretty cool with my white yellowish jawbone showing and my lip hanging on the right side at my chin level.

Then I started feeling bad that all the people were looking at me strange and wanted to cry and hide. Chris asked that they put me in a bed with curtains. They finally did. And put me on I.V. as well. My parent came. My dad didn't come to see at first cus he was having a panic attack in the other room

my mom came. Dear gawd, she is a strong and good woman sometimes. She never cried in front of me. She came to me and ask how I was feeling and said that the surgeon was coming soon [not exactly right, but hey]. She took my hand and stoke my hair as I was crying and being very scared. I tried to hold it for a while because I didn't want to freak out Chris while he waited with me. I could tell he was feeling guilty. Now I couldn't hold it any longer when I saw my mom. She comforted me and told me it was going to be ok. That they called a better plastic surgeon as she requested, instead of just a surgeon...

Anyway, long hours past. [in Canada, health care is close to free, but service is restricted and takes a looooong time]. The nurse came to try and clean the dirt out of my wounds, and my mom took over.

Then it was finally time for surgery. My dad barged into the room tears in his eyes, and threatening the surgeon :eek: [later, Chris also admitted to me my dad had yelled at him and threatened him too... sigh. lovely!]. The surgeon remained mostly calm, and I tried to calm my dad down saying a few jokes. I told him it was ok and I didn't feel much pain, and that he shouldn't threaten my bloody surgeon otherwise he would be all nervous and make me look like the joker... [Ya I know that wasn't helping. We have this talent in my family for not so funny ahah kind of jokes]. Anyway, my dad left and the surgeon was giggling politely and assuring my dad he would do a great job.

Fast forward a couple weeks later. All is well. the swelling came down. About 15 stitches careful in my mouth and lip and I mean, the surgeon did his best, considering I was so swollen by the time he got there. So my lip wasn't sown perfectly. But my mom, once again, took extremely and consistently good care of me and my wound, making sure it would heal the best it could. I think my scar is minimal compare to what it could have been because of what she did for sure.

A month after that, I finally got the courage to look at myself in the mirror. I cried. My mouth was still hanging on the right and I still had scars on my right side.

I finally called my boyfriend over and he didn't know what to do or say. He cried and held me. But couldn't have sex with me he said. I was devastated. I felt ugly and thought this was the end of 'me'. I mean I didn't get disfigured and all, but I felt like it was ssssssoooo important that he found me beautiful that, when he couldn't bring himself to say: 'your still beautiful', I just felt sad.

I got over it eventually, and Seb finally brought himself to say the 'your still beautiful' thing... took him a while! and life went on.

Took me about two year to not be scared on a bike again, but I never did mtn bike again until recently!