FINALLY! I'M BACK!!

Even though nothing was broken after my "tree" jump, it took a while before my back was better. By January I was feeling up to jumping but it was COLD and snowy outside and I was a wimp. Bernie had jumped through November and in the beginning of December. We had a pretty rough Northeast winter and there weren't that many opportunities to jump and we usually had basketball with our kids on weekends and that kind of weather just seemed better suited to skiing than skydiving.

At the end of March we still kept getting snowstorms on most weekends. April was coming though and I was so excited to finally jump again. On the weekend of April 1st we had "clean up" weekend at our dz club. We had a lot of fun painting on Saturday and the place was looking great. The classroom and gear room looked so nice we decided to paint manifest on Sunday. There was a homemade counter against one wall and it only had legs on one end and the other end was just bolted into the wall. I knew looking at it that it was probably not a good idea to stand on it but it was so tempting being right where I needed something to stand on. I decided to try it and it held fine while I painted the whole corner. "Someone" pointed out a spot that still needed to be touched up so I went to climb up again to try and reach it when the counter came crashing down and I landed on my left leg and immediately knew I had trashed my knee. It ended up that I had torn the anterior cruciate ligament(ACL) and medial collateral ligament(MCL) in my knee. Needless to say, I wouldn't be jumping for a while. I was on crutches for a couple months and spent a lot of time at physical therapy but by the beginning of July I was finally feeling ready to try jumping again. On Friday, July 6th, I picked up this brace that my doctor had ordered for me and wanted me to use while jumping and I planned on getting back in the air the very next day. It ended up I didn't feel comfortable jumping with the brace. It was lightweight but kind of big and awkward so I decided on just using a tight sleeve type knee support.

Saturday morning Bernie and I headed out to Jumptown. Nothing new about that. I had been going out there most weekends watching him and everyone else jump. He now had 50 jumps. This time though, my heart was beating a tad fast. About 200 times in the last 24 hours I had gone back and forth about jumping. One minute I was quitting forever and the next minute I'd know that was impossible because I was so anxious to get back up in the air. It had been so long since I jumped... 8 months, 15 days and 16 hours to be exact! (But who's counting???) I felt like I was starting all over again. Would I remember how to do everything? I'd start thinking about really doing it again and my palms would sweat and my stomach would flip and my heart would skip a few beats. I was concentrating very hard on keeping everything mentally together and telling myself that I could do this. Most times it was working but occasionally the butterflies would break away and I'd think... well there is nothing wrong with quitting jumping. Bernie is jumping so I can just come out here and hang out with all these great people and have fun and drink beer and party and not have to worry about these damn butterflies. That sounded very tempting but when I was honest with myself I knew that that would never be enough. I NEEDED to jump. I was going to jump.

It was a perfect day... sunny, blue skies with just a few high wispy clouds here and there, in the 70's, light winds of 7-10 MPH. The forecast called for it to stay that way all day. Jumptown was rockin' and there were quite a few AFF students. People were asking me if I was going to jump and I was kind of wishing I had kept quiet about it so I wouldn't feel pressured. It took me a while but I finally managed to get over to manifest and let Diane know that I wanted to jump and that I needed to do a level IV recurrency dive and that I really wanted to have Jay for a jumpmaster. I really like ALL the jumpmasters there but we had gotten to know Jay the best and he had become a special friend. I felt real comfortable with him and he had been on my last jump and it seemed right to have him be on this one. I knew they needed Jay for the AFF students that were already on the board and I didn't mind waiting a bit (wuss that I am). While waiting I ran into Carl Dunham who I've "met" on dropzone.com! That was cool!

Meanwhile Bernie went up and did a jump. He'd been doing a lot of 3 way jumps and sometimes they went pretty good.... and sometimes they didn't. This one he did with Ray and Stan and it went pretty good and he had a nice landing. Earlier in the week he had flared too late on one jump and had a bouncing butt landing and tore his new jumpsuit. On the next jump after that he tore it even more as he was kicking out of line twists after a hard opening after "someone" talked him into psycho packing his Triathlon.

After that jump I see that C.J. has arrived. He is my other special jumpmaster. I had had him a lot during AFF and had also started coaching dives with last fall. I'd feel very comfortable jumping with C.J. too. His demeanor just really helps me relax. I ask him if he is interested in doing a jump and he says sure so I go up and tell Diane. Soon we are on the board. Load 10. Soon after I run into Jay and he asks me if I am jumping and I tell him what's up and he says that I should have told him as he would have made time for me between students. I thought that was so nice. I go outside to talk with Carl for a bit and while we are talking a tandem has a cutaway. They land fine under their reserve and the main and free bag are soon found so all is well but it does get my mind going again a little bit.

C.J. comes and finds me and we head over to pick out gear and go over the dive. I had decided on using the student gear (even though I am anxious to try out my new gear that I've been looking at for the past 6 months!) because I was already familiar with it and I was used to landing the manta and thought it would be easier on my knee. We find a rig, check it out and then he has me put it on and lay down and practice touching the ripcord as they had been moved to the BOC position over the winter. I am happy about this because at least I will be going to the same spot when I switch to my gear and I had been practicing on mine all winter. He asks me if I want a radio but I tell him I think I'll be fine without one. Then we go out to the mock up and go over the dive. Basically it will be a level IV AFF jump but I will do 360 turns instead of just 90 degree turns. We will exit with him holding onto me and after I do 2 PRCTs he will let go and I will start my turns and forward movement. I will wave off at 5500 and pull at 5000. It all sounds good to me and I feel ready! It's kind of nice being a "student" again and having someone look after me even though I know some people (cough, cough, DJMike :o) will call me an AFF baby who needs hand holding and is what's wrong with the sport today. :-p

I like jumping with C.J. because he is like me in that he likes to be geared up and ready ahead of time. We end up even having extra time as they decide to refuel the plane before our load. While we are waiting the wind gusts start kicking up. It is making me a little nervous and I have C.J. go over possible outs with me on the map. Then I check the wind direction in relation to the sun so I'll know which way to land if I am off somewhere. I am so mentally ready to go do this. Then the wind increases some more and people from the last load are saying it was quite bumpy up there so we end up scratching. C.J. is already on load 12 with someone else so I figure I'll be waiting a while. The winds end up still being squirrely so that gets cancelled, too.

After about an hour or so (I really have no clue on time... it is just a blur.) the winds start calming down and we decide to try again. We get on load 13 and get geared up again. I am a little shaky but get it under control by taking some deep breaths and going over the dive in my head and getting some positive images of the jump going in my brain. We head out to the plane and I feel good. The hardest part is climbing up the steps and into the plane. With no railing it is hard for my knee and I don't do it that gracefully. C.J. gets us some nice seats on the bench. There are no tandems or students and since we are opening high the freefliers will be getting out before us and I am happy about being last. I'd rather have a long spot than a short one. Carl is on the load and I am excited about that. He is jumping with Mike Hampton and Mike points out that he was on my last load with me. I say I hope he isn't bad luck. Everyone is joking around and laughing and it felt good. I had missed this special camaraderie. The smell in the plane (just the good fuel and ordinary nice plane smells luckily) and the sounds of the engine wash over me and bring back good memories. I remember why I do this. I'm a skydiver and this is where I belong.

I'm very relaxed during takeoff and everything is going great until the pilot tells us that the winds are at 9 with gusts to 23. Most people start saying they aren't jumping. Someone says that if no one is jumping we should just have the pilot head back down. PT says he's jumping. Darien says he'll jump too and will just plan on landing in the bowl. The pilot keeps going up and slowly a few others change back to jumping. C.J. says we will wait to see what the winds are on jump run. Mike still says he's not jumping and Carl hooks up with the 3 way group.

On jump run the winds are down to 11-17. Mike decides to go and I'm the only one left. C.J. looks at me to see what I want to do. I really want to just go and get this presecond comeback jump over with. I've gone through all the hard part of waiting and getting on the plane etc. The door has been open most of the ride as it's hot and I am so ready to go out it. I can hear the wind and smell the fresh air and I'm ready to fly free again. I feel like those people in the movies with the "good" guy and "bad" guy on each shoulder arguing with each other. "Go!" "Stay!" "You know you want to jump!" "You don't want to get hurt again already!" "Jump!" "Ride the plane down!" "Be brave." "Be smart." I think of my conversation with Kevman shortly before boarding the plane as he was talking about jumping on a windy day and how all he could think of at 1000 ft, as he was getting knocked around, was the saying, "Better to be on the ground wishing you were up there than to be up there wishing you were on the ground'. I decide to ride the plane down. Now that I've been on it I know I can do it again and it's best to wait a little longer and get to jump all summer than to go now and possibly regret it. C.J. says good choice. He is going to jump and Mike asks if he can jump with him. I forlornly watch them all exit.

I sit right behind Billy, the pilot, and breathe down his neck as I peer out his window during the ride down. If I can't jump out, I'm going to at least enjoy my plane ride. I see the van out by the bowl and wonder if poor Bernie and Colleen are worried because they can't find my canopy. I love how the plane feels like it's going to crash right into the ground right before it levels off and lands. I'm embarrassed to get off the plane and walk back through the gate. Part of me feels like a failure. I start second guessing myself. Maybe I was just looking for an excuse. Maybe I didn't really want to jump. Maybe I just wanted to say... well I tried but... Of course people are saying I did the right thing but I figure they are just being nice. I think about it for a while but come down to feeling like I really did do the smart thing. I feel emotionally drained and exhausted though and wonder if I can get myself together to try again today.

They shut down the plane until the winds settle down. I see Jay and he says he is teaching the FJC at 6:00 but if the winds get good and I need him to jump with me to come get him and he will send the class on a break and jump with me. Soon after that they start up again and Bernie asked if I minded if he got a jump in. While he went to jump I take Colleen to get something to eat. We get back in time to see Bernie land and he thinks the winds are fine now. I find C.J. and we get manifested on load 15. It is on a 15 minute call.

I go and get geared up for the third time. Hopefully this one will be for real. Not much waiting this time. Soon we are heading out to the plane. C.J. has us out there early so I can get a seat on the bench. This time I get on the plane a little more gracefully. There are two AFF I students on the plane and Jay is with one of them and we are both happy about that. His student is feeling real good about jumping so Jay keeps giving me smiles and words of encouragement. Suddenly someone asks if anyone told the radio guys that there would be 3 student canopies in the air. Oops. No way to tell them now. Hopefully they will figure it out. The ride up is great. For the most part I'm feeling good. Every once in a while the fear starts to grab hold and I think, C.J. will kill me if I back out a third time! I think about someone from dropzone.com who was worried about going out the door and how she said so herself, "I'm a skydiver and a skydiver's get OUT THE DOOR!" and I say it to myself in my head and I laugh.

Soon we are on jump run. We will be going out third. Jeff who is on one of the AFF I jumps asks if I mind if he crawls out and just stays on front float while C.J. and I climbout so he'll be all set for his student afterwards. I say sure... he can block my wind. Everyone is so wonderful. Bob is smiling at me and giving me thumbs up. Keith gives me a little hug and says welcome back. Jay grins at me and tells me to have fun. I know he is so happy I'm jumping again. His wife, Leslie, was telling me how he was calling it Donna's Day. Jeff reaches over and gives me a kiss on the cheek. I feel like a celebrity or something. These people sure know how to make you feel good and I love them for it.

Jeff climbs out. C.J. climbs out and I'm right behind him. I hang on tight to the bar because I get this picture of my sweaty palms slipping off the bar and going tumbling off into the sky alone. I know that wouldn't be a biggie but I want to do good. I look at C.J. and wait for him to give me the nod. I go in first but them remember it's out-in-out but luckily C.J. gets what I'm doing and is right there with me. Off we go and I hit something... Jeff? I only think about it for a second as everything seems to be ok anyway. We don't really lose stability. I do 2 PRCT with no trouble. My hand finds the handle right away each time. C.J. comes around front. I check my altimeter and start my right turn. I am SO happy. This feels so great to be falling through the sky again. I'm stable and very hesitant about doing anything to upset that. My turns are very slow and tentative. I eventually make it all the way around. I check my altimeter and then start forward movement. I don't think I'm moving forward that much but decide it's long enough. I then do a left turn. Again it is slow, hesitant and cautious. I make it around and then see its around 6500 so I just lock onto the altimeter and wait for 5500. I wave off and pull. I don't throw the ripcord like I had been thinking I might after practicing throw outs all winter. I'm happy I have the ripcord but now a little worried I might forget to throw the pc when the time comes.

I look up and see my canopy opening. Nice and soft, lines straight, perfect. What a beautiful sight. I can't wait to look up and see my own canopy above me. Just then my left side drops another inch or two and I get scared. I look at it carefully but it looks fine and exactly like the other side. I decide it just must have been the rest of the riser cover coming unvelcroed. I slip the ripcord into my suit and unstow the breaks. God how I love doing this again. I'm on cloud 9! Really! I do a controllability check and just revel in being under canopy again. This is life! I check my altimeter and I'm still at 3500! Oh how I have missed student jumps and being under canopy for so long! This is going to be great!

I turn towards the airport and my canopy flies! Wow! I'll be there in about 3 seconds at this rate. I quickly turn back into the wind and hold. I start worrying about not being able to stay upwind and wondering why the heck didn't I just take a radio... just in case. Then I tell myself, "You know why you didn't take a radio. You can do this and you know you wanted to fly where you wanted and not listen to anyone else's advice." (No offense radio guys.) I look up and see one of the other students not too far above me and decide I should "spiral" down to put some space between us. The manta doesn't spiral with me under it but I do a couple of 360 turns. Then I just spend some time holding into the wind while I devour the scenery that I have missed so much. I want to just freeze this glorious feeling and bottle it so I can take it out and wear it again in times of stress. I realize it wasn't meant to be couped up in a bottle but that I can let it into my heart and soul.

Ok. Enough daydreaming. Time to get back to business. I check my altimeter and see I'm at 1500 feet and I need to plan my landing. I'm still moving pretty fast when I go with the wind so I decide to only go as far as the edge of the bowl so I'll be sure to land in thick, soft sand. For the first time in the skydive I start to give some thought to my knee. As I'm setting up I originally plan to land near the big red X but then I notice out in the middle of the bowl there are some little mounds of sand that look real thick and cushioning. I decide to head for there. I had planned on yelling and whooping as I came in but I'm so busy concentrating on my landing that I forget. As I turn onto my final leg I realize that the wind isn't as strong as I thought and I'm going faster and going to land past where I had planned. I can tell I'm still going to land in the sandy bowl and figure that's good enough. I had been thinking about trying to stand it up but at the last minute I get scared and decide to play it safe and just slide in on my right leg. I flare a little late because I'm still partially thinking there is more wind than there actually is. I slide in as planned with my left leg hardly touching the ground at all and I'm feel FINE!! I give a big sigh of happiness! I'M BACK!!!!!

Colleen comes running over a gives me a big hug and asks me if I'm ok. I tell her that I'm fine and it went good! I look up to see Bernie giving me that look that is asking me if my knee is really alright. I assure him that I'm really fine. I gether up my canopy and start heading back across the bowl thinking maybe I should have landed over by the X after all! Then I glance out as the thick, sandy area I had been aiming for and see that they are pretty big mounds of sand and that it was probably a good thing I didn't land on them! On the walk back I sing to myself, "I jumped again." "I jumped again!" Two days later as I'm writing this I still stop what I'm doing twenty times a day and sing out, "I jumped again!"

I find out that PT and Dan had been just a tad upset over the "student" who couldn't hear them on the radio. It turns out that the spot got a little long so they made a second pass for the second student so at first they were only seeing 2 student canopies that they just assumed were their students and were worried about the one not listening! Hmmmmmmm. Maybe I should have just pulled one toggle down and held it there for a couple thousand feet after I first opened. Nahhhhh, I'd never do something like that. ;o)

When we got back I get a bunch of hugs and smiles and high fives and it feels so great. Later when I get to talk to C.J. I find out I did indeed hit Jeff as I exited but he said that was ok because normally on a jump the front float would have already left a half second before. He agrees my PRCTs were right on and that my turns did really kind of suck. Timid was his word. But we both know I'll do better next time. I was just getting my feet wet again on this one. He says my forward movement was good and the reason I hadn't known that was because I was just watching him and not my ground heading and that he was backsliding to keep distance between us. He said I was rock, solid stable throughout the dive though and had a nice pull.

I know this was just a very simple dive and no big deal to most people but it meant a lot to me. It was a turning point. I was having doubts that I was meant to do this but now they have vanished. I know I will still be nervous and scared before jumps but there is no denying I am a skydiver and this is what I want. I am so grateful to everyone at Jumptown for being so supportive and incredible. It was more than I could have ever hoped for. I thought it was so cool that Carl happened to be there, too. Most of all, I can't say thanks enough to that husband of mine for giving me my space and knowing exactly what NOT to say and not saying it. I'm an incredibly lucky person.

I'M BACK!!!!!!

I smiled all night long in my sleep. At least every time I woke up during the night I know I was! :o)

1