Curse of the Sharkboy

In the summer of 2011, on Thursday, July 7th, a boy Nicholas Vossler, was attacked by a shark off  the coast of Texas, at Matagorda Island just outside of Port O’Connor. While It’s apparent that many folks in Texas have heard the story about the boy getting attacked by a shark (I myself have overheard conversations on the topic on 2 separate occasions),  most folks haven’t heard the stories surrounding this attack or the ensuing curse.

The first little known fact is that just days before he was attacked by this shark, Nicholas Vossler had witnessed a fatal plane crash in the bay while he was out for a fishing trip with his family.

http://m.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2011/jul/03/bc_poc_plane_crash_070411_144768/

"First at the scene, they tried to help, but were unsuccessful in finding anyone from the crash."
"Watching the plane accident was hard on my son, trying to get over what he had seen, and then this (shark attack) happened," he (his father) said.

If you haven’t heard the story of the shark attack,  here is a link to the first story found in the Victoria Advocate  from July 8, 2011.

  http://m.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2011/jul/08/kb_shark_attack_070911_145251/

Here are some  highlights from a second article that I read a few days after the attack also from the Victoria Advocate online...

On Thursday, 12-year-old Nicholas Vossler was enjoying a day at Sunday Beach on Matagorda Island with his family when a bull shark attacked and bit his foot.
Luckily, (yes luckily :))  his long time friend, Mark Constien, of Fort Worth, was nearby and grabbed Nicholas. "He saw what was going on and pulled him away from the shark," said Vossler (the boy’s father). Vossler then saw his son's foot, bone exposed and skin hanging from his foot.
"All I could do was take the flap of skin and place it back in place," he said.
Mark Constien and his son Kevin Constien carried Nicholas as Vossler placed pressure on his foot to stop the bleeding. Once they reached The Fishing Center...(this is an error…it should read…Once they reached the bay side of the island…I know , because I was there), the father (it was really the Mother) yelled out asking for the fastest boat available.
Capt. David White, of Victoria, saw them carrying Nicholas and helped transport the boy to Port O'Connor from the beach. Port O'Connor EMS volunteers and Calhoun County EMS then responded to the scene."

The second little known fact, and what the newspapers, and therefore most folks don’t know, is that my family was there, and it was NOT our boat that had helped transport the boy, despite being the boat NEAREST the family of the boy. 

Here’s our side of the story.  Or...where the "Curse of the Sharkboy"  begins....

On Thursday, July 7th, 2011, the Howell family consisting of:  Richie Howell - father, and Rock and Roll Genius (and ironically the most stable of the bunch),  Ace Howell - 3 year old boy wild child, Adaline Howell - 7 year old girl angel child with cerebral palsy and dependent for all mobility,  Emily Howell - 41 year old mother, currently battling breast cancer and managing active radiation burns, and Jenn S. - Adaline’s caregiver and Howell friend, who’s mother had recently fought and beat breast cancer, and who’s daughter was experiencing medical conditions of her own…. head out with a late start (very difficult to get this family to mobilize, to say the least)  to enjoy an afternoon at Sunday Beach, Matagorda Island. 

We pull up to the bay side of the Island at Sunday Beach to park the boat with Richie holding Adaline in his lap so that she can drive the boat, as is customary.  Upon arrival, there were only 3, maybe 4 boats there, which was unusual considering the recent holiday, but, then again, it was only Thursday.  We park the boat.  Richie hands Adaline off to me in order to secure the anchor on the beach. We then just sit in place for a few moments, as we often do in order to contemplate what must happen for us to mobilize this crew further. We contemplate whether to stay on the bay side or to make the hike over to the ocean side of the island.  We are just sitting there when a woman comes up to us frantically asking if we have any vinegar for jellyfish stings.  We say "no, we don’t".  The scene seemed a bit odd to me, but who am I to talk.  The Howell clan plays and swims on the bay side for a while and then we decide to go ahead and make the less than 1/2 mile trek over the sand, over to the ocean side.  Ace hiking with one broken flip flop, me with my radiation burn, Adaline in rear tow in the stroller behind Richie, and Jenn there to take care of all of us while carrying her own stressors from home, and beach necessities. We make it to the ocean.  We swim in the big waves (only meters away from where the boy will be attacked moments later) and we have a very nice time.  There are very few people on the ocean side, as well.  We decide to make the trek back over to the boat.
We get back on the boat and change the children’s clothes, diapers, etcetera….and sit... and rest…pausing before our next move, as is customary.

As we are sitting and pausing in the very same manner that we had been prior to making the hike to the ocean side, the very same lady who had come from the boat parked just on our right, only hours earlier asking for the vinegar, is now, running toward us yelling….I need a fast boat!  I need a fast boat! My son has been bit!  My son has been BIT!!  I, being much more well versed in chronic conditions than emergency situations, was slightly underimpressed by the scene the woman was making.  I could not see any boy with any injuries.  She did not yell what he had been bitten by.  I’m thinking to myself, I need more information. I'm thinking it’s probably a jellyfish again, and I am hesitant to get myself into any kind of motion.   But where is this boy who’s been bitten?  We continue to just sit in place... contemplating, as we do.  AND THEN….we kind of giggled and began to make light of the situation.  I have to say it was not Richie, though.  He got up and went out to stand at the bow of the boat to see if he could be of any assistance.  As he did, however, the woman who was running and screaming for the fastest boat, slowed down as she came up to our boat. Then, when she saw our crew more clearly she just sped back up, and ran right past us to the next boat over.   I couldn't help it, this was just so funny to me.  It was like, even if we did have a nice boat, and a good solid motor…it was OBVIOUS that WE were NOT the FAST BOAT that this mother was looking for.   Finally, we saw the boy being carried over the sand toward us by 2 men and we could see blood on his leg.  We had to admit that it looked more like a SHARK bite than a jellyfish sting.  Even then, we continued making a bit of fun of how the woman passed us right up.  I think she, as a mother, could just sense that we were not your support team for emergency situations.  We started laughing about how maybe they should call us later if the boy can’t walk, or if any any other chronic physical or emotional conditions develop, and then we could possibly help rehab him back to normal gait, or something.  We joked about how, if they had chosen to come onto our boat, we would have had to explain that it might take us a little longer because our disabled child has to drive the boat, and really only her left arm works, so the boat vears to the right a lot, etc.

Since that day, I have learned my lesson.  I am very sorry Sharkboy. Please forgive me.  I should not have made light of your situation.  You will be glad to know….although I’m sure that you already do… the very next day, on our way back from that very same beach…our boat stalled out 3 times.  We just barely made it back to the dock.    Mother's intuition? or Curse of the Sharkboy?!?

It Happened!

On Thursday, October 13.  Merely, one day after I wrote the Dreaming in Touchscreen Blog.  I posted that blog almost 2 weeks after I wrote it due to LIVING :) so much and being so excited about what i'm about to tell you.

Two things actually happened that day.

Firstly, in the evening after work, I ran 2 x 10 minute intervals  on a beautiful section of trail that I'd not seen before, and I actually felt good. Not like TFS, not just O.K.  Good. (Breathe) What a relief.

Secondly, later that night, I had a running dream.  Not the kind where you are running away from something and you can't run fast enough.  Not the struggling to move forward kind.  The kind where I'm running free and I feel good.

My first running friend,
Cindy, who now won't run
on the road unless it is to get
to the trail.

My latest convert...Jack

I woke up on the morning of October 14 thinking exactly this...It Happened!

That week I ran 29 trail miles plus 8 road.  The following week I ran 28 trail miles and 10 on the road with no trouble with my long run now up to 14 miles on the trail.  








One week after my dream, I found myself actually living my dream as I was flying down those rocky, technical, hills in the dark with my old running/training friend of 18 months ago, David J.

David, who is a self-proclaimed transformed person (in part due to trail running) and, physically, a  changed man visible to all, has, in the past 18 months completed the Rocky Raccoon 50 mile trail race, a Grand Canyon Rim2Rim2Rim run of 48 miles, several other 30K races in the Texas summer heat, and is scheduled to run the Cactus Rose 50 miler on October 30th! Go David!
(You too, JoAnna, and Jeanette, and Kuss for your 50 milers and to Lyndsay and Tonya and Justin for your 100 milers! )

I felt honored and excited to be running, and almost keeping up, with him again (even though he was taking it easy due to his taper). :) Thanks, David.

Footlong Or, Dreaming in Touchscreen

Thank You Charlie Hodge.  Looking forward to your next podcast gave me the strength that was required to make it through the 10 minutes of harp playing that I had to endure (during chemotherapy mind you) in order to download your podcast “footlong”.  Very ironically, it took the exact same amount of time to download this podcast as it took to receive my 10 minute “free” (fairly exchanged? for the price of 14 months of chemotherapy) foot massage that I believe was given as a consolation to being subject to the mandatory harp music….again.  Someone please remind me to buy the more well fitted ear buds next time.  I can still hear the harp.
Do you think it is wrong that I got irritated with the harpist that she not only played her harp, when it was clear that all us cancer survivors had pretty much anything else to do, she also had the audacity to Tune her harp on site at the Cancer center.   Isn’t it enough that she must steal precious moments with the actual harp playing, but to TUNE the thing as well.  Come On!

One of the side effects of cancer treatment that I struggle with is that I have trouble sleeping due to having Hotflashes…Many Hotflashes….upwards of 10-15 a night that wake me up.  These require covers OFF and Fan ON in order to recover.   These Hotflashes are caused by the Tamoxifen which has put me back into Menopause.  This extremely interrupted sleep makes feeling rested at the end of a night difficult.  It also makes having complete dreams rare.  I have, however, found that I’ve now begun dreaming in “Touch Screen”. When I wake up at night I note that I’ve been moving things around in my dreams, as if on my iPhone touch screen. Very possibly all of you have been experiencing this for years, since the explosion of the internet, but I did not have a computer easily available to me for internet access for several years. Then, suddenly I got cancer.  With cancer came the desire to move forward on the technology front, and the courage to face my husband with a $100 per month phone bill. This has changed my life.  I am more complete. Thank you Cancer.
I remember when I was in High School, taking French, I would at times go out with my friend Allison W.  (Hey Allison, it would be great to hear from you.  Unfortunately I’m not on Facebook, and the one time I tried to contact you by email, it didn’t work) and we would speak French for the better part of a night out.  It was fun.  I would also find myself dreaming in French.  During one period in my life when I was dating Ruben (Hey Ruben! So glad things are going so well for you and your family) whose family often spoke Spanish, I was learning Spanish, and began dreaming in Spanish.   Severely broken Spanish, mind you, but some of it must have sunken in because years later when I was traveling in Mexico, where no one spoke English, Richie was surprised at how well I communicated in Spanish despite never having taken a Spanish class. I remember my Dad used to tell me that when you began to dream in a language, it meant that you were really learning it or integrating it.  I suppose I do believe that.  It seems pretty apparent, now with this touch screen dreaming.   At this point I might argue that it might also be because you “believe” that you are learning it.   Funny though, when I was in Vietnam and Thailand, I don’t ever remember dreaming in Vietnamese or Thai. There, I remember dreaming about having actual conversations with people in English.  I remember missing the sound of the English Language. I remember years after Thailand, when Richie was racing and spending hours and hours on his bike, he would wake me up at night CYCLING!  Yes, he would be pedaling, as if in a final sprint.
I remember also that when I was a child I would have flying dreams. There is nothing better than a flying dream.  My father used to tell me that only special people had flying dreams.  My father was quite a dreamer in many ways.  Anyway, that’s why I thought it so appropriate when we threw his ashes out of that airplane.  I think he loved that.  I haven’t had flying dreams in years.

 I have however, had some running dreams, like Richie’s Cycling dreams, that are pretty similar to flying dreams.  I was having those back when I was training for the Austin Marathon, and again when I was thick into trail running.  It has been a while since I’ve had those and I feel that I'll be truly  "back", in terms of training, when they return.

Hmm, I wonder where this comes from??

Please click below.  It's working now :).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxnSZg6exUI

On the Lighter Side

I had just warned my friend Heather (who recently ordered her first prosthetic breast) not to laugh the first time anyone decides to grab it out of her shirt and run, when I misplaced my best one.  I have three.  One silicon, and two foam.  The silicon one is VERY realistic.  If I hadn’t been so open about all I’ve been through, one might not even know it was fake.  (d'ough!)  Anyway, I made the mistake myself.  The first time Ace, my 3 year old, grabbed it and ran with it, I couldn’t help but laugh.  You have to admit, that’s kind of funny…  A two foot tall boy, running as fast as he can, with a giant breast in his hands.  I quickly realized, however, that I had made a mistake, and explained to him that this was not funny.  That he should not grab that, or run with it.  (I guess it’s not as bad as running with scissors, but….) Anyway, I thought I had made my point clear, and he had pretty much stopped doing it.  Then, the other day, the silicon one went missing.  Richie said…”Did you ask your son where it was?  No, I hadn’t, and I thought that was a really good idea, so I asked him if he knew where it was.  He assured me that he had no idea.  I thought I must have just misplaced it again, like the time I found it out in the yard near my car.  (It had fallen out of my bag the night before after the boat party.) The next day, I had set the “back up” foam one on the counter as I usually do after my long day at work, and then I happened to look up as the boy was running away with it.  Needless to say, I followed him to his secret stash of breasts.  I remember when I was around his age I used to hide money in my room so I’d find it later.  I’m still very excited when I find money.  At this point, I cannot image the long term affect this is going to have on my son.

I’m up to 11 mile long runs on the trail, and I’ll start trail "training" this week. I’m pretty convinced that the Herceptin is causing me to lose 3-4 days per week of good running per 3 week period due to not feeling well.  The problem days seem to vary somewhere between day 3-day 10.   14 ish weeks until the end of Herceptin.  22 weeks ‘til Nueces.

Twins

Twins

One thing I’ve enjoyed over the years about my job as a Physical Therapist has been getting to hear stories about people’s lives. This story recently really touched me.   The patient that I was working with was an 80 year old woman.  She was telling me about her life and that she had had 6 children.  She mentioned that she had only been pregnant 5 times, though, because the first pregnancy was twins, a boy and a girl.  She went on to say that the twins were dead now.  I did ask what had happened.  (Being that they were twins, one almost automatically begins to expect that they died from the same thing.)   My patient began with her daughter’s death.  She said…”My daughter had the breast cancer.  She had the mastectomy and the treatments, and she was doing very well for 2 or 3 years, but then it came back and got her.”  This story, as you can imagine, hit very close to home and really had me a bit freaked out for some time.  I did go on to inquire about her son.  She said…”He was killed in a car accident”.    I found myself putting myself in the shoes of each of these twins.  I felt what i thought would be their fear.  It was similar, yet different.  I found myself trying to figure out which twin I would have rather been.  Which death I would have chosen for myself?   I’ve since, come to no answer.  Honestly, neither is a pleasant thought.  The best I could do was come up with some pros and cons to each.  The major pro for the female twin was that she had had some warning of her potential fatality.  She possibly had a few years of knowing that life is short, and she may have taken that opportunity to live her life to the fullest. She also, later, had some time to say her goodbyes to family and friends and to let them know how much she loved them.  Potential cons being that she likely lived with some serious sadness and fear, as she knew that it would all eventually be coming to an end.  The male twin, on the contrary, may not have had the knowledge of his own mortality. He did not have the chance to say his goodbyes, yet was spared the sadness of seeing his own life fade.  He very possibly, however, had learned important lessons of living life through his twin’s experience.

I don’t really know why I spent so much time trying to decide which would be better or worse.   I do not usually sit around thinking about how I'd like to go.  I’m fighting to live, here.  I guess that my final thought is that any of us could find ourselves in the exact same shoes as either twin.  I even know of one person who recently had shoes of each.  A sister-in-law of one of my good friends had recently won her battle against breast cancer, and then was killed in an automobile accident.  

“The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.”           Carl Jung

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life.  A man (woman) who lives fully is prepared to die any time.”    Mark Twain.

Here’s to living life to each life’s fullest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD1O2K6B30U

Nueces: I'm very excited.