Chipped

Seems strange but every year around this time, I start to ponder about my chipped vertebrae. I know I've mentioned it previously and this is how it happened...I


I I lived in the middle east with my family of origin from the time I was 12 years old to about 15 years old. My dad worked for the government in the country of Oman and we lived in the city of Salalah. It was a great experience living there and contrary to popular belief, there are parts of the middle east that are great places. We had made friends with a family that was from New Zealand and they had a girl that was my age. We all went camping out in the sand dunes and when I say sand dunes I mean sand dunes. These things are huge. Some have at least a mile circumference around them. It was out in the middle of no where. In the states, the middle of no where could bring to thought some places like rural Nevada where the nearest town is a couple hundred people and where the nearest hospital is rural but has an emergency room. Rural where we were meant the nearest town consisted of a few flocks of goats and sheep and several families living together and the first aid center had band-aids to assist in an emergency (you'll see how this ties into the story)

We had camped with our friends once out there and after they moved back to New Zealand, our family decided to camp there alone with one of our Omani friends who's name is Siheed ( it means Happy in Arabic and proncounced sigh-heeed. That's who is in the 2 pictures). Our friends had left us a snowboard that we had used last time to sand board. No bindings, no boots, no nothing except bare feet standing on the board going staight down.

I was thrilled to keep trying this new sport and didn't realize instead of going full speed straight down one should carve from side to side. I vaguely remember the night before the accident but not much else. Apparently, I headed straight down on one of my runs and at the bottom hit a slight incline and without knowledge or equipment flew off of the board and hard onto the sand. The sand is packed so hard it's like hitting ice. I laid face down in the sand for a few seconds not breathing and my brother was just a few yards away and ran over and turned me face up and cleared the sand that was covering my face. I'm sure I lost some brain cells on that fall and if my brother hadn't been there I would have lost quite a few more!! I was unconscious for the next few hours as my parents raced me back to our home town a few hours away by car. Not before they stopped at the nearest town at the first aid clinic which offered band-aids to help. Thanks but on-wards. I regained consciousness half way through the ride back. There was a family we had come to know who's husband was from Egypt and a physician in the local hospital. X-rays and tests showed I had chipped one of my neck vertebraes and had suffered a concusion. I've been told for the next few weeks I couldn't remember much of anything including what time dinner was, although I had just asked 2 seconds ago.

Thank you, Jesus that I healed.