Remembering -Taylor

She was sitting in the doctor’s office looking hopelessly at the doctor, she knew she was badly hurt but how much she was unsure. “What happened?” The doctor asked her. She opened her mouth to reply.

She angled her brand new Fischer racing skate skis, removing them from their parallel speed-inviting position. The skis had been a senior present from her mother, to congratulate her on her high standing on the ski team since her sophomore year of high school. The snow had been awful that season and this was one of the first times she had used them.

Skiing was one sport that she excelled at and it was more important to her than anything. However the race she was currently in had the most frightening course out of any of the courses she had ever raced on in competitions. They were Nordic skiing and the course was an Alpine course. Nordic skis were thinner, and it was more dangerous to go down steep hills. This was the only time in the race she was frightened: the downhill.

She recalled words of encouragement from her teammate Peter, “good luck” he had said “be careful on the downhill”. The trail was icier than she originally thought, making slowing down a bumpy and difficult process. She knew that slowing her pace here would mean losing her position in the top ten. But that didn’t matter to her anymore; she just didn’t want to fall on this hill.

“Don’t slow down!” her teammate Autumn yelled from behind her.

“Go around me!” She screamed back at her, annoyed that Autumn would criticize her decision to slow down when she had three more years of skiing experience than her younger teammate.

She heard a scream from Autumn as her teammate’s skis tangled up in hers and forced her onto the ground. She did not even have enough time to register what was happening until it was too late. Her unprotected head smacked ruthlessly against the icy trail. Bodies of other competitors were piling on top of her, banging their poles and skis around trying to regain their footing, not knowing that they were harming her in the process. She used to be the skier ahead of everyone else, but now she was the obstacle that everyone was trying to get around. She struggled to look up for a second to catch her breath, only to see Autumn hurrying away.

But then it was blissfully dark. Quiet. Painless. She was somewhere else entirely, and that made her happy.

And then she was woken up by someone screaming. Harsh screams louder than she thought someone could make. Then she realized that it was herself screaming.

Two coaches from one of the other competing schools were on the sidelines watching, not appearing to care what was happening in front of them since she wasn’t from their school. All they did was yell at her to get off of the course.

“I can’t move!” she yelled back at them after multiple attempts to move her body. She was trying to get out of the way of oncoming skiers but it was impossible. One of the coaches walked up to her and grabbed her left hand and began to pull. The only effect this had on her was letting loose a stream of impolite words since the coach had just grabbed her cracked thumb from when she was stepped on by her horse. She instantly felt bad because it wasn’t his fault because before the race she had taken off her cast so she could race. There was no way he could have known.

This caused the coach to step back as Peter came sprinting up the hill. He yelled at the coach for not getting her off of the field to which the coach replied, “If we moved her off the course she would have been disqualified.”

Peter ignored this comment and lifted her into his arms, careful not to touch her left hand or move her neck in case something was wrong her head. He carried her to the sideline just as she watched a girl crash were she had just been helplessly lying. Thank goodness I was moved… was her only thought, barely conscious.

He tried to set her on her feet but quickly gripped tightly when her legs buckled- she hadn’t regained control of her legs yet. Peter carefully set her on the ground out of harm’s way, told the coaches for the other team to call a snow mobile that would take her off of the course, and then he ran to get her coach.

As soon as Peter was gone, she used her arms and poles to put herself back on her feet. She knew she had been passed out for at least 2 minutes and out of the race for about 5. She couldn’t finish so far behind in this race. What would people think if she finished last? Another thought passed through her mind: if this would be the end to her skiing career, she wanted to at least finish her last race. And so she finished, and not even last.

“Wow, that sounds quite traumatizing” the doctor commented. She nodded her head in reply. The doctor began his examination including memory tests, eye examination with lights, etc. Then he came to his conclusion as to what was wrong.

“You have a severe concussion, Taylor.” 

Her skis were the only things that were unscathed from her crash. For the next several months Taylor had no memory, short or long term. She couldn’t read or watch television. Most days she slept all day. She was plagued by severe migraines hourly. She had to lie in bed and wait for the day when she could remember again. It would be a year before she was completely healed.