Part II: Even less funny

If you just tuned in, go back and read yesterday's post.

Fast forward a year, to the next summer.

You guessed it! We're off on another rafting trip.

Same amateur friends. Same lack of helmets.

I did tell you to remember that one. 

A little foreshadowing there, did you notice?

We were on a small raft with its owner, Dave, and a teenager, John. The day was just as gorgeous and fun, albeit uneventful until we floated past the point where we had bailed out the year before. Having missed out on Oak Springs, a Class IV rapid, I was jazzed to see if we could hit it just right. You see, at Oak Springs the water gushes through a narrow gap between two large rocks.

If you get lucky, your life dangles by a thread as your raft dips its nose down a precipice of white water. You feel an thrilling rush as it traverses the hazardous gulf to calmer waters. 

Well, we did hit it just right and it was an anticlimax. We had heard horror stories about this particular rapid, so I felt a bit let down.

I know, silly me, right?

I voiced my complaint to Dave.

You know I did.

He asked me if I wanted to get out and pack the raft back upriver to do it again.

Of course I did!

So this time we hit it completely wrong.

All I remember is being underwater and feeling perfectly serene. I'm pretty sure I was breathing water, being held under by a strong current. It happens a lot by the biggest rapids. I have no memory of the passage of time or of any panic, but then someone pulled me up to the surface. Jeff had managed to keep hold of the raft and felt something brush by his feet. 

It was me. 

The men righted the raft and we crawled back in. As we commenced our journey, Jeff noticed that my head was bleeding and he started messing with my hair. He was quite distressed to find that my head was cut to the skull. My husband does not handle blood very well; he goes green when he has blood drawn! 

Lucky me, I have very little memory of the next few hours, but I'm told we floated down the river to the end of our journey and, once again, we headed back to Newberg to the emergency room.

And the same nurse was on duty that had been there the year before.

And she remembered us.

It was mildly embarrassing.

I spent the night in hospital with a concussion, one of several in my life.

Do you begin to see a pattern here?

I didn't sleep much because I was in and out of the bathroom all night. Apparently, I also swallowed an enormous amount of the Deschutes River.

Annie, who was only three, was traumatized for days at seeing her mother in a hospital bed.

My own mother chastised me severely for risking my life in such a manner.

We didn't attempt rafting again for a long time, but it always galled me to think that that rotten river got the best of me. So five or six years ago, when my gym owner gave me a voucher for some guided tours on the Deschutes, I was nervously ecstatic.

Finally, I would face my fears and show that river who was boss.

We took Annie and Charlie.

We wore helmets.

We had a guide.

We had the best day together, but as we approached Oak Springs I felt a yawning pit where my stomach should have been. All of those old fears came rushing back at me and I felt nauseous. The guide knew my story and was reassuring, but I have never felt such an adrenaline rush as when those rocks came into sight. I gripped the handholds with all my might and braced myself against the side of the raft. 

And then, as we sped through the gap and out the other side, my mind and body were flooded with exhilaration. In a strange way, it was one of the best moments of my life. I, who happily shun roller coasters and gigantic bungee cords and say Phooey to skydiving and base jumping, I faced my fear and I won!

Which must have given me a false sense of accomplishment, because there is one more story.

Only it's not about rafting.

Tune in tomorrow.

You will understand why I am left at home, more often than not, these days.

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