Hello, here's my story.

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I'm not totally sure where to put this so mods feel free to do whatever ya'd like.

I?ve been meaning to write about this for a while now, so here goes.
October 2012, a few weeks prior to turning 26 years old, my 22 year old girlfriend and I decided to go on a driving adventure from where we lived in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, across the country to the rocky mountains of British Columbia. She had just graduated university and rather than just settle down in a place we aren?t too particularly fond of, we figured an adventure was the way to go. We made a blog along the way, so if you?ve got a bunch of time to kill, you may find it a decently cool thing to read.

http://catandstevegowest.tumblr.com/tag ... eve/chrono

The blog ends with us driving back home to Ontario to see our friends and families for three weeks, and then driving back out to Fairmont Hot Springs, British Columbia to work at the golf and ski resort. I worked temporarily at the ski hill until my golf course job started up, and on the last day of the ski hill being opened, all hell broke loose, on a day that I will never forget.

It was an annual staff party, and one of the traditions is riding the protective chair lift pole pads down the hill. When a ski instructor with loads of experience asked me if I?d like to take one down with him and a friend, I said ?sure? as I was new here and wanted to participate. So up the hill we go, and the very next thing I?m cognitively aware of, is being a three and a half hour drive away, bleeding to death in a hospital bed in Calgary, Alberta. Apparently I hit a tree at some God-awful speed, and was impaled on a branch. My right iliac wing (pelvis) was broken into four pieces. My sacrum was shattered, along with my L4 and L5 vertebrae. My urethra was torn, a few ribs were broken, and several litres of blood were lost. My mother had caught a flight as soon as she got the news and was in my hospital room before I was even awake. As far as I knew I was waking up learning about what had happened, but the more I learned, I realized I wasn?t unconscious for it. I suppose the traumatic nature of it sort of blocks it out of your memory. Anyone with medical experience and some without, were talking to me on the ski hill while I was bleeding out, trying to keep me awake and alive. It took paramedics almost two hours to get to the scene of the crash.They said I needed to be flown via helicopter to Foothills hospital in Calgary, but due to the storm there was no way that was happening, so the three and a half hour ambulance drive commenced. I believe they told my girlfriend and a long-time good friend of mine (who had driven out west with us this time) that it wasn?t even worth it to follow the ambulance, because of the sketchy conditions. I guess the medics thought I was a goner. They did follow anyway, which was cool. Apparently I was saying my goodbyes to them, ? I?ll see you in another life? or something like that, but I don?t really remember.

Dying is a very interesting thing. From my experience, being so close to death, I had the option of dying if I wanted to. It was like I was given the option to just, die. It?s tough to explain, but I remember consciously thinking something along the lines of ?No f*****g way am I going anywhere?. Then immediately, I became conscious of all the extreme pain in what felt like every inch of my body. Unbearable pain that is so much worse than I thought a human could ever feel.

I spent about 6 weeks in that hospital, and luckily my Sister and her awesome husband lived just a short drive away, so they really helped me get through it. I then had a medical leerjet flight back to Ontario for another two weeks in the Hamilton General Hospital. A hospital bed was put in my parents? house that I slept in for another two months, while I slowly learned how to walk again, and let my bones heal.

The torn urethra made it necessary for a catheter, which I had for about 7 months after the accident. This thing was the worst part about the entire injury. A doctor seriously messed up in the first week I was in the hospital. For whatever reason, there was a note in my patient chart that read ?DO NOT REMOVE CATHETER?. One night, obviously missing that, this resident doctor decided to show a nurse how to properly remove a catheter and put a new one in, using me as the guinea pig. So they yank the first one out, and she?s trying to jam the new one in, to no avail. Confused, he tries to see what?s going on, and starts jamming away trying to get it in there. It?s not going. The pain was so indescribably horrendous that I would honestly go through all the pain of the broken bones ten times over if it meant never having to go through this. Eventually a Urologist showed up and had a look with a little scope, probably one eighth of the diameter of the catheter they were jamming in there, and it was apparent to him that there was no hope of a catheter working, as the urethra was torn apart. I was rushed into an operating room and they had to put in what they call a supra-pubic catheter, which required a hole to be drilled through right above my pubic bone, into my bladder, and the tube would go directly in through there. I was fully conscious for that, with no anesthesia and no time for any additional pain medications to really take effect. Needless to say, it was not very comfortable.

My girlfriend ditched our relationship a few weeks into the hospital stay. She said ? I?m having feelings for someone else? after what had seemed like a pretty good two and half years together. I went through what I ?m sure is pretty standard given the situation; anger, confusion, disappointment, but I had much more important things to focus on considering the shape I was in. I thought the dude she had fallen for was pretty solid, anyway.

The catheter issue continued on for what seemed like forever. I had some sort of calcium build up in my bladder which clogged the end of the catheter that was inside of me. So with no natural way to take a piss, and the tip of the catheter that was inside me blocked, my bladder would expand as urine was produced. It was often pretty far into this process that I would detect it, and it would always require an emergency catheter swap. I think it happened about ten times, and the pain was absolutely incredible every time.

It happened one time just under twenty-four hours after being discharged from the hospital, and an ambulance had to come and bring me right back in. This was probably the worst one of them all, with something like a full litre of urine in my bladder. When the doctor yanked the tube out of me, it was like a massive piss explosion out of my pubic region in the operating room. The doctor and all the nurses were covered in it, and finally after an hour or two of writhing around in a hospital bed, I was fully relieved and laughing my ass off, for about eight seconds until the new catheter had to be jammed into me again. Right around my birthday in October of 2013 I had my sixth surgery since April 7th. One of the best Urologists in Canada had to open me up down there, go in and remove loads of scar tissue, and then essentially sew the torn urethra back together. He said it was the toughest surgery of his career, but that it was a complete success.

Roughly eighteen months since the accident now, I?ve made what most people consider to be a full recovery, although I have some pretty gnarly nerve damage down my left leg and foot, and my lower back gets really sore with any physical activity. My once great penis is also not such a triumphant bastard anymore, but we?re working on that.

It?s funny? Depression is something I?ve battled with for the majority of my life, and as horrible of a situation as this was, I wasn?t any more depressed because of it. I?m actually a much better person than I ever was before the accident, and sometimes I can barely remember my life before it. Not knowing if I would ever be able to walk, play hockey, make a living or even be able to take care of myself again was something that was often on my mind but luckily, beginning the process of re-discovering my spirituality in my early twenties helped enormously.

We are all eternal spirits who have taken temporary physical form in order to learn and grow. Whatever it is you?re dealing with, no matter how hard or how messed up, just know there is a reason you?re here. It?s pretty rare that I?m able to just let myself write, so it would be awesome if you can take something from this.

-Steve Cooper

Wow, Steve - you have been through Hell! I have never wanted to go anywhere near a ski resort and now I REALLY don't want to...

You've had amazing strength and perseverance. I hope in time you'll be fully healed.

Thank you for sharing this.