Kimmy Fasani: The positive side of an injury

(Ed. Note: Winter X Games veteran Kimmy Fasani is the latest addition to the Pretty Tough Team and this is her first blog post for the site. )

Snowboarding professionally is an amazing career, however, sometimes your body has to pay the price for trying to progress the sport. In my eyes, small injuries are part of the job description when you sign on to be a professional athlete, but as an extreme athlete I must remember that big injuries can take me out of the sport I love forever. Therefore, every time I drop-in to hit a feature while I’m snowboarding I have to remember the risks that go along with what I am doing.

When I am standing at the top of the run I weigh my odds and typically ask myself three questions:

1.  Do I feel confident in what I am doing?
2.  Am I scared of the consequences?
3.  If I hurt myself, will it be worth it?

These questions help me gauge the fear and the motivation I have to hit the feature.

On April 24th, 2009, I was in Park City, Utah and I was building a jump take-off that would make it possible for me to jump over a 35 foot dirt gap and land in a five foot window of landing. I was with a couple other riders, a filmer, and a photographer and together we were assessing the feature and its possibilities. I decided to do some test runs for speed and for some reason my board was running really slow.

I had hesitation in my mind because of the speed issues. I was asking myself, “How am I going to land in that landing perfectly? Will I go too far or will I come up short?” Immediately I tried to erase these thoughts from my mind and think about positive aspects of the feature. I was nervous but felt confident that this feature was do-able; I was just going to have to have the perfect speed.

None of the other girls were ready to step up to this feature, so I decided I would give it a go. I was the guinea pig, meaning I would be hitting the feature first. As I dropped in I was feeling good, but as I rode off the take-off I knew I was in trouble. I popped too hard, I was going too fast, and to make things worse I shut my eyes in the air.  I missed the landing by a hair and my knees gave out. I slipped onto my butt and I felt my back compress; this wasn’t going to be good. To make matters worse, I knocked the wind out of myself so I was having a hard time breathing.

Once I caught my breath, my mind started spinning with thoughts. I couldn’t believe I had just hurt myself. Was my season over? Did I just break my back? What will my sponsors say? How long will the recovery be? Should I get X-rays? I slowed my mind down, looked at my friends and had them help me stand up. I shifted from side to side and back and forth. I was almost certain I had compressed a vertebra in my back and I would need to get X-rays to see how bad it was.

As I moved around, I was having a lot of pain at the bottom of my right ribs. I had one of my friends take me to the clinic in Park City and sure enough after we got the X-rays back I learned that I had compression fractured my T11 Vertebra and that my 12th rib was out of place on my right side. I was given doctors orders to stay off my snowboard for 6-8 weeks.

After I found out the facts about my injury, I started looking on the bright side. My first thoughts were, “It’s the end of April and I have already filmed a full video part with Stance, my sponsors are being really supportive and understand that I will be off the snow for a couple of months, and at least I am walking and on my way to recovery.” I even got to take a mini vacation to San Felipe with my boyfriend, Chris. We laid and walked on the beach, swam in warm water, found sea shells, and went clamming!

Even though injuries are the worst part of the job, every injury teaches me more about my confidence and helps me define my fear. I learn to reevaluate my abilities and I learn from my mistakes. I have learned that no matter how many times I hurt myself, I still have a driving desire to get back out on the hill and ride again. This feeling shows me that snowboarding is not only a passion, it’s also an addiction. I am addicted to snowboarding and I love my life.