CHESS ANYONE????

Let's call this BEFORE and AFTER!  Hays loves snowboarding and has been on a team now for several months.  After moving from Branson, MO to Durango, CO and living there just two winters, he's done remarkably well.  He's spent a month of Saturdays and Sundays on the mountain practicing this sport!   He has dreams of following in Shawn White's tracks!

I love it that he's brave and energetic.  I love it that his parents give him the world and all that's in it. I love it that he craves fresh powder and speed!  I love it that he's ALL BOY!

I dont' love the fact that this past Saturday he received the "crash of the year" award.  His jump started off beautifully.  He'd been over those slopes many, many times.  But during this first competition something horrible went wrong.  The nose of his board dipped at the wrong time and he became the new poster boy for the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat."  The video is too painful for this BeBe to watch. 

He jumped into the air, twisted end over end and landed on his right side, HARD! Seeing him laying still in the snow was a heart-stopping experience.  Hearing the by-standers shout, "Hays is down, Hays is down!" nearly did me in.

After hours in the ER it was discovered that he now has 6 broken ribs, a broken collar bone and a vertebrae in his back. 

He's smiling in this picture because  he'd  just been given  several potent modern pain killing drugs. 

(I wish those broken bones were mine INSTEAD of his!! Don't we always wish our children's pain could be transferred to us. )

The Dr. said that his helmet saved his life!

He's healing slowly and he's learning to deal with the pain.  He's ready to go back to school, but his body isn't. His snowboarding season is over for now, but there is no doubt that he'll be back at it next fall. He hears that call to the slopes deep in his soul and he'll answer.

I'm going to try to talk him into CHESS!