The SkyBlog

I had been very pleased with my recovery so far since my accident, just being able to get airborne once agan was a sign that things were going well, we did have a narly flight off the crest but really it was not so bad just scary since i was looking for a smoothie.

I had been on a trip up north to Tres Piedras two weekends ago, to our land for some wilderness fly fishing and some hard labor on our property. Saturday afternoon i was out fishing when i started to feel like i was coming down with the flu or something like that so i headed home to the yurt and was taking it easy resting, but when i felt up to it i was getting some work done digging a new hole for the outhouse with the pick axe, after about 20 minutes i felt quizzy, i headed into the yurt and as i walked i noticed that my vision was warped on my right side.

Sunday  morning i awoke and felt about the same i got my things together and drove back to Alb, it was not easy driving but i was making it happen. Just out of Santa Fe i had a blow out on my truck, and was able to keep it upright. I made it back to town late afternoon and went straight to bed with a wicked migrane headache which i figured would get better the next day but did not.

I suffered through hell for the next three days, with off the chart migrane pain, i had to stay in a dark room and keep my eyes closed with a cold towl on my forehead. Finally i dicided i needed to get checked out and Wednesday at 11:00 was the hour of truth. I went to Rasa’s clinic in the south valley and there they started to re-hydrate me since for five days i had not eaten much(nausea) or dranken nearly enough they were running the second bag of fluid when my headache got worse. At that time the doc knew something was really wrong and they wisked me off to UNMH-ER and there they did a quick CT scan and found that i had a subdural bleed that might require emergency brain surgery and about 10 miutes later my heart rate dropped to 30bpm and as i was lying there out of it i did notice that people were starting to panic and move very quickily. it was only a few minutes later they were putting me under and next thing i know i was in the neuro-icu with a huge scar across the top of my head, and very little hair left.

Basically i had torn some blood vessels during my previous accident and i had been slowly accumulating blood in my subdural space between my brain and my dura matter layer. This was increasing the pressure on my brain untill it finally was shutting down my heart, they opened three nickel sized holes on the right side of my head and a huge flap on the upper right side of my head which required 47 staples to close up. the Doc said they removed about a 150-200 ml/cc of blood/fluid from my brain, which had the consistancy of motor oil. They put a drain tube in place and watched me for two days with CT scans each morning and when the drain slowed down they removed it and then let me come home.

I’m still having alot of pain in my head and i get a seriously painful flash behind my right eye that comes and go’s about every three minutes.

Doc says i better take it easy for the next three months and i’m going to take the advise this time around. Can’t afford to risk it with this type of brain injury. they had to cotterize the blood vessels that were bleeding and so those areas are now very fragile and they say if i re-injure it the consequences will be much worse next time.

Just writing this blog has zapped my strength so back to bed for me.

So far there does not appear to be any premanant damage or deficit.

I get a check up tomorrow with another CT scan.

This was a real wake up call that any timew you have serious impact forces like i expereinced in my accident you really need to pay close attention to your mentive state and if you have any doubts go get a CT scan and maybe even several over a few weeks to make sure there is no sub-dural blled going on.

All this left me with the feeling that if it were’nt for bad luck i’d be having no luck at all.

On the mend!

David P.

Well, i’m sorry for the lack of blogness on my part, i usually have plenty of things to blog about in the flying world but since i have’nt been flying everything else seems boring.

I’m happy to say that i am again airborne and this time in my very own Paraglider!

Saturday Rasa towed me up twice to 2,000 ft over the Taos gorge. It was very refreshing to be back in the sky under my own set of wings! My third flight i made was on Rasa DHV 1-2 and i found some nice 500 fpm lift and was soon several thousand feet over the ground, the views over the gorge are amazing,stunning. I flew over 20 head of bighorn sheep.

My back felt better then it does on the ground, the harness was comforting but my right arm did go numb after 30 minutes and stayed that was for 20 minutes after i landed.

Yesterday i made my first Sandia Mtn flight since my accident and everything was going great until a cloud started to drop some virga to the west of towna nd that sent off a evening heat release that was off the chart and i had about 20 minutes of terror as my glider was getting tossed all over the place. I had my big ears on going up at 1,000 fpm at times and then all of a sudden i took a huge hit the glider spun 180 then surged hard i tried to stop the surge but the glider stalled back behind me then surged to my left then right, on the next surge i got control back and was happy to have a open glider overhead. the thought of having to throw my reserve and have a hard landing with my back still healing was very unnerving. I flew in big ears for about 45 minutes before i found a patch of sink, my arm was killing me at that point as it’s hard to lift my right arm above my shoulder but to hold big ears on for 45 mins was not easy. after i spiraled down a few thousand feet i found smooth air and was able to relax a bit. but certainly not what i wanted for my fourth flight back. 

I’ve been trying to keep it to smooth sled rides or at least nice thermals, but when the shit was hitting the fan i noticed that my reactions are still honed and the adrenaline takes over and the pain is pushed to the back of your mind.

I’ll be towing more pilots up over the gorge in the near future, this place is proving to be very consistant with smooth lift and awesome views.  i’ll try to get a few pics posted here for you all to see.

For those of you who donated to my medical relieve fund i want to lety you all know there was a error in setting up the paypal account, which was set up in my son Sky’s name but he is not allowed to have a paypal account untill he is 18. So we are going to have to refund all of the monies that were doanted and then i will set up a new account in my name and ask everyone to re-donate. A majority of the money had already been spent to the medical bills which we had put on Rasa’s credit card, since we were not able to access the paypal account.i will be sending out a email to each person stating that their donation has been refunded and a link to the new account so they can click and re-doante. I apprecaite everyone’s donation and hope they can find time to re-donate, these donations have made it possible for me to re-negeotiate my medical bills to much lower rates i.e. $70,000 reduced to $4,500. i could not have done that with out you all! Thanks again.

More soon,

David.