Our days are falling into a routine here at Apache Wells RV Resort. It doesn’t give me much in the way of exciting adventures to post about. There will be some good times and things worth mentioning, but I think I’ll take a different approach today. I’ll go back into my history.

Yesterday, I went to the dentist. I had a gold inlay removed and my #14 molar prepped for a crown. I had a good dental record until a few years ago. I mentioned in this post how head and neck radiation have damaged my teeth. Why did I have head and neck radiation? That’s a long story, but before I can start that story, I have to tell you this one.

In the fall of 2000, I spent many weekends driving over Stevens Pass to go bird hunting in eastern Washington. I had an excellent pointing dog. AJ was one of the best Weimaraners to ever be judged in a North American Versatile Hunting Dog (NAVHDA) meet. I started him on birds when he was a puppy and he loved to hunt. I loved to walk behind him as he would stop on point with birds frozen still in front of him.

One weekend, AJ and I drove over the pass to Swakane Canyon, north of Wenatchee, on the west side of the Columbia River. Dustin Nations, my oldest daughter Alana’s boyfriend at the time, went with me. We were going bird hunting on the steep walls of Swakane Canyon. The floor of the canyon is at an elevation of about 1,500 feet above sea level. The steep walls of the canyon quickly rise to an elevation of more than 3,000 feet.

It was a tough climb up the canyon wall, but I knew we would find California quail and chukars there. Chukars are one of my favorite birds to hunt. They live in steep, rugged terrain, usually near water, and feed on grasses. When they flush, they usually glide downhill and disappear quickly. This makes them a challenging target. They are also one of the most delicious birds on the dinner table.

On this day, a light snowfall covered the upper half of Swakane Canyon. Dustin and I parked my truck and began climbing up the south side of the canyon. About a half hour later, we were on a snow-covered trail, about a thousand feet above our parking spot. It wasn’t very cold, the snow was a little wet and the trail was slippery. We hiked past a rocky ledge. The ledge was very flat on top – the flat top jutted out from the canyon wall about 15 feet and was maybe 25 feet wide.

We continued to make our way up the steep climb. AJ was casting about ahead of us, looking for bird scent. He lost his footing and tumbled past me. He scrambled and regained traction, giving me a look that said, “What are we doing here?” He loved to hunt though and climbed above us once again, searching for birds.

After we climbed another 300 feet or so, we stopped and caught our breath on the narrow trail. These trails are carved into the canyon walls by bighorn sheep and mule deer and meander all the way up. Dustin and I debated whether we should continue upwards or call it off due to the treacherous conditions.

All of a sudden, my feet swept out from under me. I think that while I was standing on the steep incline, the snow under my boots was melting and gave way. I was sliding on my belly down the steep canyon wall. I wasn’t on a meandering trail anymore, I was sliding straight down. I clutched my prized SKB over/under shotgun in my left hand and tried to grab at scrub brush with my right hand. In some places, the canyon wall was vertical and I would be airborne as gravity propelled me toward the canyon floor.

At one point, while I was no longer in contact with terra firma, I let go of the shotgun. When I made contact with the hillside, I tried with all my strength to dig my fingers into the rocky ground and stop my descent. It was useless – all I succeeded in doing was ripping off a couple of my fingernails.

I was dropping very quickly now. I remembered the flat ledge we walked past and I thought I was directly above it. I figured I was moving way too fast to be stopped by the ledge. I thought that the ledge would only propel me away from the canyon wall like a ski jump. My thoughts were racing as I tried to think of options. I wondered if I should tuck into a ball and protect my head once I launched or should I spread eagle and try create as much wind resistance as possible as I fell the next 1,000 feet to the rocky canyon floor.

I didn’t hit the center of the ledge – my left foot caught the edge of it. This flipped me around and I was now falling head first. On the side of the rock ledge, a gnarled old juniper had grown. As I fell head first in a superman pose, my right arm was trapped between the juniper and the rock ledge.

This brought me to a sudden stop. I was dangling off the side of the ledge, 1,000 feet up the canyon wall. The sudden stop yanked my right shoulder and dislocated it. The ball on the upper end of my humerus bone was behind my shoulder, it was like my arm was coming out of my shoulder blade.

To my left, there was another rock jutting out from the canyon wall, just a few feet away. I pushed my feet against the rock ledge and jammed my back against the other rock. I was able to shimmy my way up a little bit and relieve the tension on my shoulder.

I heard Dustin scrambling down the trail towards me. I hollered, “Slow down, don’t fall. I’m okay.” Then I said, “Do you see my gun?” He appeared on the ledge above me. He  had my gun. He said, “I can’t believe you’re okay! I thought for sure you would be dead.”

I told him I wasn’t really okay, I was hurt pretty bad. He laid prostrate on the ledge and reached down to clasp my left hand. Dustin was a strong lad and he was able to pull me up onto the ledge. As I was coming onto the ledge, I felt my upper arm pop back into place. That’s when the pain started.

I was afraid to walk down the trail with my right arm hanging useless. I was afraid of falling again. I sat with my feet in front of me and scooted along on my butt all the way down. We drove for more than two hours over Stevens Pass to the hospital in Arlington. I don’t know why I told Dustin to drive home instead of going to the hospital in nearby Wenatchee. I guess I was in shock and not thinking too clearly.

The morphine they gave me in Arlington sure helped. The doctor didn’t seem too concerned about my shoulder. He was looking for internal injuries. But I kept complaining about my shoulder. When they took an X-ray, I couldn’t stand or lie flat, they shot the X-ray with me seated in a chair.

After a while, the doctor put my arm in a sling and sent me home. The next morning the hospital called and said the radiologist wanted to see me. He showed me the X-ray from the night before. It was out of focus and blurry. He said something didn’t look right, he wanted to take an MRI image of my shoulder.

He found that my glenoid (the flat area of bone that the humerus seats against) was fractured. There was a triangular piece broken out of it that looked like a slice of pie.

I had surgery to repair the glenoid and labrum (the soft tissue that holds the upper arm to the glenoid).

After the surgery, the orthopedic surgeon was puzzled about my slow recovery. He thought the bone and soft tissue should have mended after five or six weeks. It took me months to recover.

On one of my follow-up visits with my primary care physician, Dr. Gary Schillhammer, I mentioned a small lump on the right side of my throat. He felt the lump and said it was a swollen lymph node. He measured it and said it may be the result of low-grade infection from the cuts, scrapes and torn fingernail beds from my fall. He said I should come back in a month if it didn’t go away.

I’ve told this story so I can get to the next one, which occurred about a year later. I’ll write about that in next few days.