Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Finally found the cause of my sister's accident

Three years ago, in February 2013, my sister had an accident while skiing. We were coming down a slope (not a difficult one) and suddenly she fell. But it was not a normal fall. When we go down, we automatically protect our most delicate parts. This time, she went down like a falling rock. When I reached her, she was still unconscious - and for a moment I thought she was dead.

A passing class of skiers with their teacher alarmed the rescue services and not long afterwards Chris was in hospital, where all kinds of tests were taken. Yet the doctors could find no accurate cause for what had happened. They kept her one day in the hospital, and then she could return to the hotel.

That was the end of our skiing holidays. We just don't dare to take the risk of it ever happening again. And today we finally learned what most likely was the problem.

It was by reading an article about a young cyclist who fell during a contest and died afterwards. Apparently, he suffered from a problem with his blood pressure (which both of us are having too) and he could only do intensive sports for 3 to 4 hours. Then his blood pressure would fall dramatically and cause a spell. And we had been skiing all morning, and part of the afternoon. And not only leisurely, when we ski we do black slopes and take a bit of (!) speed.  So now we are both warned: we shouldn't be doing intensive exercises for longer than a 2,3 hours at a time. Well, I haven't been doing that for some time. I feel it when my body needs rest and I listen to the warnings.

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