sheer madness

so, the busy saturday is finally at an end. I woke up at 6:30am to throw a lasagna in the oven for APO's Adopt-A-Child. The event basically revolves around a central part where we take the kids shopping with a $30 APO donation and whatever else we want to contribute. Anyway, I went back to sleep for about an hour or so before showering and getting ready to get to the TCC for the event. Overall, the event was a good time despite my somewhat disenchanting experience with my adoptee.

So, after Adopt-A-Child was over, Titus approached me about going to Thousand Hills with him to help "in case anything happens." That's right - it was just around freezing and Titus decides it would be a good idea to go swimming in the lake. Typical. I agreed and headed out to Thousand Hills armed with blankets, hand warmers, and a whole lot of Emer-Gen-C. I thought I had some extra bags of LR lying around, but I was semi-shocked to find them all frozen solid as they had been sitting in the trunk of my car.

this was the sight at thousand hills... perfect for a dip in the lake.

One by one, people started showing up at the boat launch. Much to my surprise, Titus had recruited two more people to participate; Aaron and Nate. It was at this moment that I started to go into a bit of a panic mode. I had planned for two swimmers, not three. I can't begin to describe the series of emotions that set in as my mind started to race with the contingency plans of hauling a frozen body out of the water. Thoughts of having to perform life-saving measures on my friends flooded my brain - something I had hoped to never experience again. All three had put on wetsuits and started to slather vasoline over their exposed skin. We were getting ready to start. At this point, I was basically at DefCon1.

We started to launch the boat to the side of the dock, where there was minimal ice coverage. Fortunately, this was a shallow area with very little rock coverage. Unfortunately, this was exactly where the park restaurant dining area looked over the lake. It was official: we had an audience. The ice was too thick to pierce but too thin to walk on. We could only hope to scoot across the ice using what I imagine to be the most ridiculous-looking implementation of Newton's Laws of Motion. Eventually, we did make it to the open water and the current immediately began pushing us back toward the ice. I thought to myself that this was absolutely insane - and I wasn't even in the water.

At this point, Titus, Nate and Aaron began their approach to the water. They warily stepped out onto the ice as we floated nearby. Unexpectedly, the ice gave as Titus plunged into the water. It was like a scene out of a bad movie. Fortunately, he immediately surfaced and let out a yelp as he commented about the frigid water. With one body in the water, Aaron and Nate immediately followed. After a few strokes, Aaron's brain must have finally comprehended the insanity of this whole ordeal and turned back for shore. Nate and Titus continued on and we realized this was actually going to happen. Not a second went by where my brain wasn't contemplating the process of hauling one of them into the boat. All I could think was "dear God, let the shore be closer than it looks."

This whole endeavor continued as Seth and his wife paddled us along side Nate and Titus. We would periodically shout encouraging comments at them. This was apparantly wasted effort as we later discovered they never heard us. It was about ten or fifteen minutes before we caught sight of the shore. At this point, Aaron jumped back into the water to finish off what he had started. For the last five minutes all three headed back to the point where warm blankets and hot water awaited them. Dr. Lovy, Vita and Jeff were at the ready as all three staggered out of the frozen water. As we landed the boat, we quickly ran up to help with the rewarming process.

So, needless to say, there were no casualties and we were very fortunate that everyone seemed unscathed by the entire endeavor. And that, is pretty much the average weekend in medical school.