Week 45- I Picked a Fight with a Tree

I definitely started this week in better shape than I finished it. I had coaching first thing on Monday morning where we worked on deflections, moving the ball, receiving and games. I wolfed down a quick breakfast and showered to rush to class, only to discover that it was cancelled. Despite my best efforts to try get some work done, my laptop decided it was going to spend the next two hours updating. I managed to get some work done after lunch and I chatted with Emma (one of the committee members of the frisbee club in Auckland) about how to grow our respective frisbee clubs and what works well. We had our usual group dinner in the evening and we were all amazed when Alice managed to turn broccoli into burgers and we also had homemade chips. We rounded the day off with a game of my favourite card game, hearts.

Tuesday was not particularly wild. Beyond preparing for a test the following day on fluid dynamics the only noteworthy thing was that I had some dry needling done on my elbow which was pretty uncomfortable but also nice in many ways. I didn’t go kayaking that evening, owing to the test.

I was up early to prepare for my test and skipped my first lecture to get in some last-minute cramming. Despite being given a certain formula sheet for our revision, we were given a different one for the exam which didn’t include a particularly meaty formula that we needed to solve one of the problems. Thankfully, my many hours of repetition had ingrained the formula in my mind and I was able to answer the question. Considering how upset most of the class were afterwards I thought I did rather well. To celebrate I went to the Mechanical Engineering Faculty BBQ with Lydia (from the kayak club) and got some free food before joining Cooper, Amy, Harry and Marlene for Vegan lunch. After a short afternoon nap, I went with my team in St. Peter’s College to play St. Kentigerns. This match was our chance to get into the top division having been in the third division the previous year, so it was a big challenge. St. Kentigerns are one of the top 2/3 teams in the city and they showed it in the game, winning by a reasonable margin. However, there were a great many positives for our team, with plenty of chances for us to score. We stuck to our system throughout and asked a lot of questions of a good team. I was delighted with the performance and both umpires and the other coach came up to me afterwards to tell me how impressed they were with our performance.

With the nature of having a training session the morning after a game, we went a bit easier on Thursday morning. I debriefed the game, we worked on deflections and played games to finish. I was late to class after coaching and then went home after to have breakfast and shower. That afternoon there was a free pizza event organised by the study abroad office in Auckland. The pizza provided was in meter-long, rectangular form and we were also given a free t-shirt. The main reason for the event was to try persuade us to come back to the university to do a masters or PhD.

I was going to Kawerau that weekend with the kayak club for the beginner’s trip. We were driving down on the Friday and left at about 15:30 but before that I had a Control Systems test which went well and then I had to buy food for our group breakfast on the kayaking trip. We left with Jasmine and managed to avoid the worst of the Friday evening Auckland traffic. We stopped at a kebab place in Matamata and sat around a kneeling table. I was then judged, mercilessly, for eating my kiwis whole! Once at Kawerau I made fish-couscous-pesto with Marlene for dinner and I hung my hammock from the rafters for sleeping that night and then we played what was described as ‘Irish Snap’. I had never heard of the adaptation from the classic game before but it essentially involved slapping your face or the ground or a wall depending on what card was played. I went to sleep in my hammock and although I was woken a few times by other people coming into the scout hall, I essentially slept well.

I was up early on Saturday morning to cook bacon, eggs, mushrooms and spinach as part of our group breakfast which went down a treat. Once ready to kayak I was put in with the top group and we set off. For whatever reason my roll wasn’t quite firing as I would have liked and I ended up having a couple of swims, including managing to lose my shoe. I think trying to roll off both sides had confused me. We had lunch as a big group in the sun and then headed back onto the water. I felt much stronger in the afternoon with no swims, confident runs and caught some eddies really well. After kayaking I threw a frisbee around with some of the other beginners and just thoroughly enjoyed it. I said to myself that I’d give up the kayaking in a heart beat if my hamstring would let me play frisbee properly again. Before dinner we went to the local, free, hot pools. We had breath holding competitions underwater and underwater swimming competitions which I managed to clinch with my swimming background! We spent far too long trying to take underwater photos and do weird hand-stands but it was all part of the fun!

One of the highlights of the weekend was the communal dinner. The organisers of the trip had made lasagne and brownies for all 50 odd people who were on the trip! I ate mine out of a massive mixing bowl because we ran out of regular bowls. I did have to leave the group at one stage to go on an adventure to buy sugar for the mulled wine as I was sober and could therefore drive! The main piece of entertainment for the evening was trying to climb around a table without touching the ground. There were a range of techniques on display with some definitely working better than others. I got back into my hammock to sleep but after an hour or so I was woken by someone who decided to rock me violently. I wasn’t happy with this rude awakening but I drifted off again after not too long. It was probably my own fault for having my hammock above the party but I wasn’t to know that when I originally hung it up!

We made pancakes on Sunday morning for our group breakfast and got ready to kayak. I wasn’t feeling great health wise, but as it was the last weekend I decided to get in anyway. I was going to get into a more stable boat (a mystic) so that I was more sure to have a happier time but I was convinced to get into a faster, more unstable boat (the Braap). In hindsight, I probably should have spotted that things weren’t going to go so well.

Once in, we practiced some rolls and then I missed an eddy and started to drift down the river. I was going backwards at this stage and had to try to quickly get my nose going the right way. I ducked under one low hanging branch and began to paddle as hard as I could to get out of the path of the trees. I didn’t manage to get far enough out and was firmly snatched by one particular branch. I was holding my paddle pretty tightly as it became wedged in the tree branches but my boat, still in the water, was being forced down the river beneath me. Something had to give and unfortunately for me it was my shoulder which popped out of the socket. Now free from the tree but without a paddle and only one working arm I fairly swiftly found myself with my head in the water, upside-down. With my one good arm I pulled my spray skirt, extracted myself from my kayak and proceeded to swim towards shore. Josh, my instructor, headed downstream after my kayak and paddle, Zac asked me if I was okay. All I could manage to do was shake my head. Once out of the river I bent over and tried to let my arm hang loose to see if it would pop back into the socket but with my tight wetsuit and thermals keeping the shoulder pulled forward there wasn’t much hope of that. I walked back to the hall we were staying in and asked Mark to drive me to the hospital. Still in all my wet gear, we put a towel down in the car, Mark did up my seatbelt and we set off on the 45 minute drive to the hospital. Mark did his best to have a bit of sing song as we went to keep my mind off my shoulder but it was difficult as I could feel my shoulder swelling inside the wetsuit. I managed to hold off the tears but by the time I got to the hospital, my shoulder had been dislocated for a full hour and I felt like I was experiencing the most physical pain I’d ever had to endure. I was seen almost immediately by the doctors. They cut my life jacket off but then decided to unzip my wetsuit and take that off arm by arm. All the thermals I was wearing underneath followed. The female doctor took hold of my wrist and elbow with my hand at my bellybutton and got me to take some deep breaths. She told me to go to my happy place. I thought of my month on Waiheke island with Jack and Mark and Clare and then before I knew it she had gently rotated my arm outwards and the shoulder slid back in, Pain free.

Having been in all my wet river clothes for so long, my body temperature had dropped by 2 degrees (although I didn’t feel cold) so they gave me some tea and sandwiches. Mark loaned me his work clothes so I could put something dry on. Not too long later, after having some x-rays taken, I was discharged and back to the kayak group, feeling much more comfortable in my sling. Everyone showed me great concern which was nice though my instructor, Josh, was blaming himself which I felt was unfair. We stopped in Burger Fuel on the way home and Jasmine bought me a burger. I had to sleep upright that night and it was not the most comfortable night’s sleep but I couldn’t do much else other than deal with it.