Update from Sun Peaks - BC, Canada

Date: 4th December 2007

I am currently in Sun Peaks in BC, Canada. I have had a crazy start to the trip actually. A bit of a string of bad luck. After having my flight from LAX to Reno canceled and subsequently spending the better half of the day in the LAX terminal, my next flight a few days later, from Reno to San Francisco was also cancelled. After being re-routed via Seattle to Vancouver, I arrived with no luggage. We decided to stay the night in Vancouver before driving to Sun Peaks. We got some accommodation at a motel/hotel in Langley just out of Vancouver. At 1.45am the fire alarms started blaring, we all assumed it was just burnt toast, until everyone had their doors bashed down "Fire!! Everybody get out" in a state of serious panic we grabbed everything we could and threw it in the car, however, I had no luggage, which made my trip quite a bit easier. The place was burning to the ground, the room above me had smoke pouring out of the doors and windows, the roof of the whole hotel was on fire smoke and flames filled the air. We later found out it was arsine. So we set off for Sun Peaks at about 2.30am. My bags finally turned up one at a time, and some of my luggage was in pieces, including a brand new POC helmet which had not previously been used. When we thought the luck had to stop there, after merely one day of freeskiing, I awoke to chronic pain at about 5.45am the following day. I was nauseous, dizzy, hot and the severity of the pain was indescribable. Something I have never experienced!! After screaming and rolling around on the ground "something is going to burst Luc, please I am dying!!!", an ambulance was called by Luc my coach and I was rushed to Kamloops hospital. The pain finally subsided and it was later found that I had torsion of the ovary. Not sure what caused this, particularly while sleeping, but possibly a cyst which burst and caused the ovary to twist. A very painful experience. Since then I have been a bit hesitant on snow but after seeing another doctor yesterday I am now ready to look forward for the rest of the season. After doing 2 days of freeskiing, it looks like we will be doing some Super G and GS training in the next few days which will help. Stay tuned for what I hope will be a less eventful update in the near future!