..and this was the result:

On the second day of Christmas my brother and I decided to take his kids for a little fun in the snow. My brother drove the tractor upthe dirtroad through the woods and flattened the snow to make a nice track for us. His kids were on their sleds, and I used my telemark skis. The first run went fine, and we went back up for another run. The cold and mostly dry weather had produced snow light as air, unfortunately not very much of it. I could not resist trying to ski in the powder off the flat road and on the second run I went through the woods. Came back to the road about halfway down, and tried skiing in the powder filled ditch next to the road. Unfortunately the powder hid a few rocks, one for my skis to stop dead in their tracks, and another for my shoulder to land on after flipping forward at full speed.

I have fallen before, but never really seriously. Immediately after trying to get up I knew this was something different. Movement in my shoulder area did not feel right, and was painful. At least keeping things still did not feel that bad. Luckily my brother was on the tractor right behind me and saw the whole thing. He helped me get up and transported me out of the woods, and soon after to the doctor. Doctor sent me to the hospital for an x-ray. The diagnosis was clear, my right collarbone was broken straight off. They gave me some pills and sent me home.

Initially I was told just to keep it still and it would grow in place. However after about a week they called me back for another x-ray. They recommended surgery and wanting a fully functional collarbone I was not hard to convince even if I no longer was  in any pain and was able to use my arm slightly. So after another few days they operated on me. They separated the two pieces of the collarbone, put in a metal plate and screwed it all together in its right place.

After surgery:

Thankfully the surgery seems to have gone fine. It has been a week now and I stopped using the sling a few days ago, much faster than after the initial fracture. Looks like my diving holiday in about a month will not be affected! All the time I have on my hands while not being able to dive, ski or work lets me catch up on my “Internet-diving”, and resuscitate this bloggy thingy. So more on my diving in 2010 and plans for 2011 should follow this post!