Good Omens – my concussion

I believe in omens, but only the good kind. I can make anything a good omen. There’s a great scene, that I think about all the time, in the film The World According to Garp, where Robin Williams as Garp is looking at a home with his new wife. After a plane crashes into it, he says to the realtor, “we’ll take it.” Explaining to his astonished wife, he says “yes, but that will never happen again – it’s been pre-disastered.” 

So now I have to figure out how getting a concussion on the very first day of 2024 will act as a pre-disaster for the rest of my year!

First off – I’m fine. I have a big bump on the back of my head and a bit of ear pain (the internet says that’s normal), but while I had a headache yesterday, that’s gone today.

We were driving the ring road from Reykjavik to Vik to see the black sand beaches and besalt rock columns. Along the way are a number of beautiful waterfalls and I made us stop at everyone of them for a little awe for nature and selfies!

The beautiful Saljalandsfoss did me in. The majestic falls have a 360 degree path around them so you can experience their beauty from all sides. I should add that it was alternating between rain and snow for our entire visit and the path to anyplace watery will be sheer ice if the thermometer falls below zero as it had on January 1. They were clear about the danger.

But it was so beautiful that it needed to be seen up close (I will add that on my last visit to Iceland I saw this waterfall up close, so honestly, it didn’t need to be seen again.).

My beloved hiking boots, which have taken me up the Himalayas, the Andes, the Atlas Mountains, across the Sahara and the Arctic Circle have seen better days. I quickly realized that a decade plus of hard use takes a toll on the tred which, it seems is no long existent on my soles. Quickly realizing that I was in real danger of falling I made the mistake of grabbing hold of a guide rope. As I started to go down, I held tightly rather than use my hands to break my fall and came down hard on my right elbow and continued to slide as the back of my head hit the hard ice.

I have fallen many many times in my life, but I have never hit my head. While folks rushed to check in on me, and an onstite medic was called, I checked in on myself. I’m so used to twisting an ankle and going down that I was initially just excited that walking was still easy.

My pupils were checked and pulse taken, I waited the obligatory however many long minutes and was deemed safe to travel and only very mildly concussed. We finished our journey to our hotel in Vik and opted to eat in rather than risk the weather.

The worlds greatest fish soup was the salve for any lingering annoyance or pain (in that order).

In a change in policy, apparently it is ok to let a concussion victim go to sleep and I slept very welI last night, and woke up feeling about 90% better, headed to 100% with a bullet.

I have been marooned in the Maldives, robbed on the Marrakech Express, and gotten pneumonia in Peru, but, despite how clumsy I am in all aspects of my life, I have never been hurt on any of my travels. I suppose it was only a matter of time, but I’m a little pissed that it happened. And I’m also grateful. I am no pre-disastered and nothing can stop me.

2024 is gonna rock.