Next thing you know you're on the floor of your boat bleeding.

My Dad told me to slow down today. He is one to talk, he may have been the one who made up “givin er’ “ It did sink in a little tho.  We are only shovelling the driveway I suppose.  It’s not a race and for him to bother spitting the words I must have been attacking it. 

It reminded me of the time this last summer when I was buzzing around on the second morning of a three-day bow river trip.  I went down to the river to get something from the boat and realized that the overnight rain had put a reasonable amount of water in the jet boat.   I needed to get down in the boat to turn on the bilge and I tried to step down onto the gunwale of the boat (like I’ve done a million times before) and I stabbed my flip flop right into the gunwale.  I was already committed and I was gonna crash.  I don’t know how it all unfolded but I was down and it hurt.   I hit my head pretty good on the rod tray for sure, but I hurt from a few different places and it was so fresh I couldn’t tell which was the top priority.   I felt around my head tapping then looking for blood.   Nothing . . Ok.  Now I figured there would at least be a bone sticking out of either my arm or leg which were both in some type of trauma. Pat, pat, pat nothing more blood no blood.  Pat, pat, pat oh   There’s some blood   I still couldn’t figure where it was coming from for a few seconds but by the time I got back to my elbow, it was apparent, I was leaking pretty good.  

If you look closely you can see the hex head pattern in the shirt. This Patagonia hoody will never be the same.

The end result was I had landed on a hex head screw on the floor and it had punctured my elbow in the shape of said hex head screw.   Not sure what a broken elbow looks of feels like but I thought this is as close as I had ever been.   Turns out it wasn’t.   It just bled a lot.  I managed to finish the trip with the help of Ibuprofen, good fishing, patient clients, paper towel, polysporin, and duct tape. It was sore for a few days but I made it through.   It was just a little reminder that everything can change in an instant.  Rushing around was the reason I ended up on the floor of my boat Bleeding and maybe part of the reason why I’m falling apart. Thankfully it wasn’t too serious of a crash. 

Also notice the hex pattern still in my skin after a days healing.