Uphill from here…

I received the phone call at 4:15 and by 5:23, I was standing in front of the registration desk at Colchester Regional Hospital’s emergency department…before the ambulance arrived from the ski hill.

The Tall Blonde took a tumble. Or three.

More like a full on triple somersault that finished with a face plant.

OK… before I go on, let me say this. She’s fine. Or will be. She has a broken nose, cuts and bruises to her face, a “punched” eye and a “moderate to severe” concussion…not to mention…she feels like she’s been hit by a truck.

She’s sleeping it off in a dark room for a few days…with no TV, texting, computer or visitors…to give her brain and body a much-needed rest.

And, she won’t be returning to France today as expected.

And I call this fine?

Yes…because there was a moment…an hour…two…where, despite my best efforts to keep calm, I was in full “mom panic.” It didn’t look good. They x-rayed her spine, saw a “shadow” and couldn’t confirm anything until after a CAT scan and the doctor’s confirmation of “Great news! Her neck is not fractured.”

And my heart began to beat again.

It stopped. When they were rolling her off the backboard, feeling the individual vertebrae in her spine and trying to determine the extent of her injuries. I felt the swishing in my ears and pounding dizziness when her C3 vertebrae was tender. When they determined they needed further tests. When they were strapping her back to the board. When I was catching my bearings and the eye of the nurse as she gave me a reassuring look. When my head started spinning in pure fear and I had to sit before I fell to the floor.

But she’s fine. Bruised. Sore. Cut. But fine. Nothing broken or fractured except for her nose that was crooked to begin with from a break years before…that, funny enough, might be straighter than it was before she lost control, somersaulted three times and landed on her face…extending her neck that will be sore for days…that’s bruised and strained…but isn’t fractured.

I’m in “mom mode” for a few days. Counting my blessings once again. Caring for a sore and beaten up kid. Who repeatedly complained how “everything” hurt from the “torturous” backboard…calming me with the thought that “everything hurting” was far better than “feeling nothing at all.” Who, even while complaining, had a smile plastered on her face and kept us giggling as she sang “soft kitty” in Trauma Room 16…much to calm her own nerves as it was to calm mine. Who thinks it might be pretty cool to have a black eye. And who’s spending a few extra days at home with her family.

This is “up there”… along with a few other moments where I’ve been too afraid to breathe. I’m an emotional wreck. But I’m so damn thankful.

Thanks so much to The Tall Blonde’s friend Messy…who stood by every step of the way and even had sympathy pains reminiscent of Joey and Phoebe on Friends. Thanks to Bones, for sticking by me when I needed her. For the ski patrol at Wentworth, who acted so swiftly. And especially, to the Doctors and Nurses at Colchester Regional Hospital…who couldn’t have possibly done more. Thank You!