Today was meant to be a good day! A day bonding with 1/2pint (my son), whilst also raising some charitable funds for a great cause.
17yrs ago, while on a "boys holiday" abroad, a good friend thought it would be a good idea to penguin dive, head first, into the swimming pool of our hotel, on the first day of the holiday. Little did he know, that the side of the pool he had chosen to divenin to was the shallow end.... SNAP! There goes his spine. Hes been in a wheelchair since, and paralysed from the chest down, with restricted movements in his arms just for good measure.
Thats not to say, you should feel sorry for him. Hes having a great life. Thanks to some magic little, blue, pills, hes managed to father 3 children, and has a better social life than most peoplei know. But on his bucket list he still has a few things hed love to tick off before, you know, the end.
On his list of things to do, is to climb the highest peak in South Wales, which is Pen Y Fan, and hes recruited a group of his family and mates to help drag him up there in a custom built wheelchair.
Its a 2-part request, and while hes hoping to summit, he also wants to raise money for anchariry very closento his own heart - SPINAL RESEARCH.
To raise some money, the challengenis to grt friends and family to climb Pen Y Fan in advance, as many times as possible, and post/share your story to help generate some donations. Well today was the first dry and clear day weve had for a few weeks, so i planned on taking my son up for hisnforst trip up the mountain.
It was a nice early start, and the plan was to get there and best the bank holiday traffic ip and down, and make it home in time for some lunch, before posting our story and a few photos.....
The day started as planned, but definitely didnt end that way!
Passing through the clouds, the temperatures began to plummet. Of course, being young and carefree, 1/2pint was loving life and refused to wear any warm clothes. The higher we got, the more snow was on the ground. Soon we found ourselves surrounded by the white stuff, so i called out to him to remain close and to watch his footing.
No sooner had I told him, with a short twist, and a sudden slump, hed fallen over and landed on his elbows.
Being the responsible Dad that i am, i had a few first aid essentials on hand and managed to to rig up a makeshift sling.
2 hours of painfall decent, and we can now make our way to the local hospital for some xrays.
My worst fear was confirmed a few hours later, when the doctors came in and explained hes got a fracture of the Humerus and may require surgery. Luckily, after much consultation, the consensus was that a brace and monitoring would be suffice.
Were all home safe and sound now. Hes in a bit of discomfort, but nothing some light medication cant keep on top of. Weve got to go back in a weeks time for a reassessment, then its just a waiting game of 6 to 8 weeks for full recovery.
Its safe to say, he will be in no rush to get back up the mountain any time soon.
My @pinmapple experience- [//]:# (!pinmapple 51.88390 lat -3.43665 long Went up a d3scr)
