Anniversaries and snakes

Me in front, SG behind

I love this picture of SG and me coming in for a landing under our pretty Stiletto parachutes at Skydive Snohomish. It was taken a few years ago and still gives me lots of pleasure to think back on those days. On September 1st, he celebrated the anniversary of his first-ever skydive. It was 55 years ago! It certainly wasn't under a parachute like one of these, but an ancient round version. He also didn't have his reserve parachute mounted behind like we do today; piggyback containers didn't appear until much later. His reserve was mounted on his belly and the gear was massively heavy! I didn't start skydiving until 1990, when the equipment was much lighter and everything had developed to be more appealing to someone like me. I've never made a jump on a round, but he has thousands of them.

Today is the anniversary of my first skydive, 27 years ago. It was a tandem jump and I thought it would be the only one I'd ever make. But I got hooked by the sensation of freefall. I've said it before: until you have experienced what it's like to be in freefall, there's no way to adequately express it. It feels like you are weightless as you plummet towards the earth. When you leave the airplane at 13,000 feet (around 4,000 meters) above the ground, it's WAY down there, and you see mostly sky. As you fall, the horizon gets closer and the ground begins to come up to meet you. At about 5,000 feet, it's half sky and half horizon, and then the ground really begins to come up quickly. I wore a device near my ear that would audibly warn me at 5,000 (time to finish playing in the air), 3,000 (time to pull your parachute) and 1,500 (get something out now!). It was rare for me to hear the last one, because I would already be floating under my pretty parachute.

Since it was such a huge part of my life for so long, you would think I'd miss it more than I do. But everything has a time and place, and at 72 I decided I was done with skydiving. My partner had already come to that conclusion, so in February 2015 we had both retired from the sport. I no longer follow it avidly, like I did for years, but I still enjoy seeing my friends' pictures on Facebook of their latest exploits. I had become cautious and tentative and did not enjoy the thrills and chills of skydiving nearly as much in the later years. But there was a time when I made around 300 skydives every single year, and my logbooks are still among my prized possessions. Not that I like to read them, but I could if I wanted to relive a particular skydive.

Yes, things change as we age. I'm now struggling to keep up with my friends when we do a particularly difficult hike and will one of these days move to the slower group. It's nice that the Senior Trailblazers has two levels, and the relaxed group will be more to my liking after awhile. Not yet, though. I'm not ready to leave my hiking companions behind quite yet, although I know most of the people in the other group already.

I got an email yesterday from an old friend, John, from Colorado. He recounted an experience he had while on a walk with his wife and dog. He saw a small eight-inch-long snake on the trail and thought it had been run over by a bike and was dead. Surprised when he saw it move when he touched it with his boot, he decided to pick it up and move it to the side of the trail to keep it from harm. Unfortunately, it bit him on the thumb, a sensation like a bee sting. He didn't think much about it at the time.

However, as they continued to walk, his hand began to swell. They decided they'd better call the doctor and see what they should do. He was told to go right away to the Emergency Room and have it looked at. By the time he arrived, his hand was twice its normal size. Although he thought it was a garter snake, it was a rattlesnake, probably a baby that had not yet developed a rattle.

In his own words:

Good thing because an hour later my hand was swollen 50% larger and very painful. ER people said the swelling could cut off blood to the hand resulting in severe tissue necrosis.  After some morphine  for 8 pain on a 1 to 10 scale, they did blood tests and decided it was a rattlesnake.

John spent the night in the hospital, receiving antivenom treatment every few hours and having his blood drawn periodically until the toxin level had receded. I guess this is a very expensive treatment, but I couldn't help but think about the fact that long ago (or maybe not so long ago), this would have meant the loss of his hand, at the very least, or maybe his life. I remember when they sold snake bite kits and taught you how to cut the wound and suck out the venom.

Out of curiosity, I just looked up on Google whether or not we have any poisonous snakes in the Pacific Northwest. This is what I found:

Out of the dozen or so species of snakes that are native to Washington state, only one, the Western rattlesnake, is venomous. As they are not found in Western Washington, you can usually assume any snake you encounter in the greater Seattle area is not venomous.

When I lived in Colorado, I was quite aware that rattlesnakes were common, but I never saw one. I think there were a few others that I saw and wondered whether they were rattlers, so I learned to identify them. And for the edification of my readers, I am supplying you with this link. Remember that there will be some pictures of snakes on this page, so be warned. I was going to put a picture of a rattler on my post, but if you are anything like me, it would make your skin crawl. So I decided to turn away and let you decide for yourself if you want to look. (shiver)

Anyhow, you have now learned all about the title of this post. We've covered anniversaries and more about snakes than you probably wanted to know. My friend John will recover completely, I suspect, but he sent me an email telling me that he's still not back to normal, and it's been a few days now. I sure am glad it wasn't any worse.

My dear partner reminded me that next year our skydiving anniversaries will be 56 years for him and 28 for me, exactly twice as long for him as for me. I'll have to find some way to mark that time in a manner befitting its significance. But as we all know, the future is not ours to see, even just a year from now. I'm hoping that next year we'll be looking forward to fall in much the same way as we are today. We are in the last throes of summer's heat and hopefully next week we'll be back to normal Pacific Northwest temperatures.

And with that, I take a look around me to discover that all is well in my world right now. Partner still sleeping and making nice gentle breathing noises, tea is gone, and the coffee shop beckons. And you, my dear reader, I'm hoping that you will have a fine Labor Day tomorrow (if you are in the US, that is), or in any event, I'm hoping that you will have a wonderful week ahead. Be well until we meet again next week.