Nathan was the skipper on that one so he may post his perspective too...We started well, bang on the line but a little too close to shore - an embarrassing moment is when we realized that our fenders were still down...but I took care of that quickly. I think that Latitude 38 is wondering how much we'd be willing to pay so they don't publish that part of the story :)
We headed up for the South Tower but there was a super heavy ebb in the main channel (the 'river') and we were slow to catch it which allows El Raton and Verve to pass up. It took a while to adjust the backstay and traveler but as soon as we figured that out we were gaining on Verve and El Raton, leaving the other E27s behind us.
Soon after the gate, I moved (I don't quite remember why, although I think that I was trimming the jib a little bit...), I think that I slipped because the next thing I remember, my temple is hitting some protuberant metal part pretty hard, bearing most of my body weight. I wasn't knocked out, just a little groggy. Didn't spend much time thinking about it and went back up to the high side. We tacked and continued to follow the lead boats.
The waves must have been 10 to 12 ft tall (that's my estimate...and I am a metric system person so take someone else's opinion on that one), dolphins were in surfing them and playing with the breaking ones, clearly having a ton of fun. So were we. Elise was in a great groove, we were both tethered to the boat (although sitting on the rail on the high side isn't very risky frankly. Perfect conditions. Nathan was driving admirably in the waves, so they didn't slow us down as much as they could (imagine that we had to climb up hills constantly before going down with a bang) -
Slowly though, I started to develop a headache and a throbbing pain on the left side of my head and my eye started to feel like some big bug stung the corner of it. I was a little dizzy so I asked Nathan to check if there was a lump. His response was 'you have a golf ball, we're turning around'
I don't think that I registered entirely what he said but through my head was going the following battle
'this is a race I have been looking forward to for weeks, we are not turning around, we have an appointment for the lightship'
My Jiminy Cricket would then take the floor: 'you hit your head hard on a metal surface and you are starting to feel dizzy, there is a lot of fluid building up in that area and you may have internal injuries or bleeding which you may not actually find out about until you get to the lightship and then, it would be super expensive or slow to take you to the hospital for some kind of emergency procedure. Play it safe, you can go out and race in the ocean many other times'
Verve just turned around in front of El Raton so we were in 2nd position in our division AND catching up to the Rat. This was NOT a good time to turn around. I was also looking at these awesome waves - as much as waves can be annoying upwind, they are super fun downwind and I was salivating at the idea of a 12 mile surfing playground back to the finish line. Turning around was not part of that plan. My face must have looked quite incredulous as Nathan repeated
'you should go look at yourself in the mirror down below. This looks pretty nasty'
'I don't want to go below' (I was feeling fine but on my first ocean race, I usually do not want to take risks with sea sickness - I think that the real reason is that a) I didn't want to take my weight off the rail and I didn't want to accept this reality. If I could see my face in the mirror, i'd have a hard time staying in denial'
Nathan asked if I was feeling OK. I honestly wasn't sure, starting to feel a little sleepy. I had to replied 'I don't know' which was the truth. He decided to turn around and have this checked. His thought process was 'it may be nothing but if it isn't the case, I don't want to have to find out at the lightship'
So we turned around. I swore (I probably used the 'F' word more often on Saturday than in the last year or so, I never swear normally), I started to cry, I was super upset, I was also feeling sick and I threw up a couple of times. I just wanted to sleep right now. Nathan hadn't seen me like this, ever probably. I am sometimes disappointed when we race and break something and have to give up some great advantage but never quite like this. I looked really shaken.
I went to a dozing off pattern until we reached port again. By then the golf ball had descended upon the eye and was starting to encircle it. Nathan offered to put away the boat, gave me a sandwich and an apple fritter which we had planned for the day and Serge took me to the hospital.
I found there that I had fractured my eye socket bone (on the left and top left of the eye) and that I had suffered a mild concussion - given the latter, the doctor said that there was a risk that I had internal injuries and bleeding in my brain. This could lead to seizure and death if not taken care of soon. She said that I had to choose between doing a CT-Scan and brain MRI - both expensive procedures and the former carrying a non-negligible radiation risk OR have someone with me at all times for the next 24hrs who could drive me to an ER the minute I started to act incoherently, pass out, or do a bunch of other weird things..
Some typical symptoms of a concussion are
- big cranial or facial swelling
- abnormal behavior (particularly around moods)
- vomitting
- severe headache (which I had since I hit this thing)
- Dizziness and feeling drowsy
There is nothing to do with the bone, it will just take 6 to 8 weeks to mend itself. It doesn't have to be reset, just has to solder itself back on. I chose the baby-sitter. Symptoms may still develop over the next few days after the head injury and I am to watch out for them. Mild concussion symptoms resolve themselves pretty quickly.
All this sounded like good news - and I hadn't been to the hospital to have this checked out, I would have seriously wondered why we weren't on the water at this point. Then the doctor broke the bad news:
'if you go back to do sports where there is a risk that you will sustain another head injury, this could result in blindness and death. The bone could detach itself and pierce the optical nerve or your eye - and this area of your skull, even though, particularly strong, has now suffered a bit and will be weaker for the next few weeks. Another head injury could lead to a much more serious concussion. So no sports for 6 to 8 weeks, and that would include whatever it is that you were doing when that happened'
There is no way I am not sailing for 6 to 8 weeks (although I did not say that to the doc) - Nathan suggested that I ask about wearing a helmet. If it is a hard hat, it would protect my skull, and reinforce it. Double-Handed Farallones is in two weeks - this is one of my favorite local events, there is no way I am missing it.
I am still feeling super super bummed not to have finished the race, so so sorry for Nathan as he had to turn around. I was such an idiot! couldn't I watch where I put my feet? I mean, it didn't even happened in the rough part of the race, this was right after the gate in some really mild and round swell.
Anyway, Nathan was kind enough to baby-sit me and Serge brought some home-made biscotti today. I rested yesterday and just did some minor boat work today. I am on tylenol (the doctor offered to prescribe pain medication but I turned that down) and I used ice to reduce the swelling which was super effective.
Meanwhile, El Raton continued with a great race.
Of course, Nathan was right and knowing that symptoms of a concussion can develop over the next few hours or even days after the event, he didn't want to run unnecessary risks - of course, it was worth checking. Now that it turns out that I probably would have been OK, I so wish we had continued. Easy to say in hindsight and as Nathan puts it, it doesn't make that decision bad at the time, and without the benefit of hindsight. Still, this is the bummer of all bummers of the day...Of course, he did the right and responsible thing to favor safety of everyone on board over race results - he probably did what I would have done in his shoes if roles had been reversed as I would have worried about him.
Sailing as a school of life. I just have to deal with this disappointment. Writing this blog post is probably one way of doing it...
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