When Josh was a freshman in high school, he ran cross country. He has fond memories of being a member of the XC team that year--because the years following that, he was the team manager instead of a runner.
The above photo came from his high school yearbook. His coach took a whole bunch of pictures when they ran at the Wood River meet and submitted them to the yearbook. I'm so grateful for these pictures, because they were taken of Josh as a runner before the accident on October 11, 1991 that paralyzed his vocal chords.
During homecoming week of his freshman year, he wanted to go to the Powder Puff football game, but he needed to finish his chores on the ranch before he could go. He needed to change some pipe, and he was in a hurry to get it done so he could go to the homecoming festivities. His dad had put up a single-line barb-wire fence that day in the field to keep some pasturing cows contained. Josh was driving his motorcycle fast across the field, heading west to get to the pipe line, which was straight into the setting sun, and he didn't see the barbed line. The single strand hit his upper arm first, then bounced up to his neck, and he was thrown off the motorcycle. Some neighbors were hunting in the field at the time and saw him laying in the field, choking for air. There was no exterior wounds on his neck at the time, but they knew it was serious and they took him directly to the hospital in Salmon. From there, he was life-flighted to Missoula where an emergency tracheotomy was performed, and then he was flown to Seattle Children's Hospital where another (better and corrective) tracheotomy was done, as well as inserting a plate and screws in his neck for a broken vertebrae. He stayed at that hospital for almost 2 months recovering from the surgeries were performed. He came home at Thanksgiving, with lots of scars, a hole in his neck where the trach tube was attached, and he was wearing a back brace. He couldn't talk without covering the hole, and breathing was now difficult (he compares it to breathing through a straw), so running was totally out of the question after that.
Josh has never stopped loving to run. As an adult, he knows his physical limitations, but he pushes those limits and doesn't let his disabilities stop him. He coached cross country for years after we moved back to Salmon, and often ran practices with the kids and even ran in a few coach races for the fun of it. Now that our oldest son is a cross country runner, Josh has loved watching him excel in the sport that he was unable to.
Ammon is a freshman this year in high school, and this is his 3rd year running Cross Country. He loves running with the team, and he looks up to the older runners who are positive role models. Halfway through his cross country season this year, he also got injured. The second weekend of September, Josh took Ammon with him to go help move furniture for some people in our ward. They were moving a dryer upstairs from a basement. Ammon was at the front of the dryer, walking backwards up the steps, and Josh was pushing it up from behind. Ammon tripped going up a step, and the dryer landed on his knee. Josh worked to get the dryer off as fast as possible, but the damage had already been done. Ammon was in a lot of pain, and when they got home, he instantly iced it and elevated it. He thought perhaps his knee had just been bruised, so he continued to run at practice every day, but the pain in his knee got worse and he began running slower and slower. He ran in a few meets with the pain, but instead of being at the front of the pack like he started out the season, he was now running at the back of the pack, which was frustrating for him.
 |
| Ammon is on the far left--notice his left knee is wrapped. We wrapped it with heat tape in an effort to lessen the pain; it didn't work. |
I worried that he had a broken bone, or damaged cartilage, so I finally convinced him that he needed to see a doctor. Josh took him to an appointment one afternoon at the beginning of October, and the Dr. said he had tendonitis in the knee. She recommended that Ammon keep it elevated and iced (which he was doing faithfully already), and we scheduled an appointment to have an ultrasound done at the physical therapy office, because she said it would help break up the tendonitis faster. When homecoming arrived the second week of October (the same week as in the year of Josh's accident), the cross country team had a bye week. It was good for Ammon to rest his knee from the strains of racing, and his knee finally began to improve.
I thought retrospectively many times that week about Ammon's situation and how it compared to Josh's experience 23 years ago. When I drove Ammon to the Powder Puff game, I thought about how quickly Josh's life changed in that one night. When I went to the football game on Friday night and saw Ammon walking around with his friends, I thought about how Josh was in a hospital hundreds of miles away during his homecoming football game. And when I picked Ammon up from cross country practice at the end of the week, I thought about how Ammon's freshman cross country season was similar to Josh's, but the endings were much different:
Similarities:
Josh ran cross country his freshman year, and so did Ammon.
Josh liked running and was good at it, and so was Ammon.
Josh got injured during the cross country season, and so did Ammon.
Differences:
Ammon got better and finished out the season strong, but Josh was unable to.
 |
| Ammon's team with their 1st place trophy at the District race |
No comments:
Post a Comment