Over the summer, I went to Mont Tremblant with Mazzy. It was awesome (you can read all about it here), but there was one major snafu. On the second to last day of the trip, after three days of adventure and tons of fun, I got into a little bike accident (with myself) and ended up going to the hospital to treat some minor cuts and bruises. The photo above is the first and only picture from that bike trip. (And no, because I know you will ask, my fall was not camera phone related. It was safely in a zipped pouch, as it should’ve been.)

Figures, that we do all these crazy things (zip lining, a tree to tree course, falconry lessons, etc.) with no incidents whatsoever, and then the thing that gets me is a stupid bicycle. Also figures that Mazzy just learned to ride a bike earlier in the summer and then after telling her— “you’re fine, no need to be scared, a little fall isn’t going to kill you” repeatedly, she has to witness her mom completely wipe out and almost start crying. If it wasn’t just me and her, I’m not sure I would have been able to hold it together.

Here’s how it went down…

I was following Mazzy, going down a hill, when she started slowing down. She was pretty adamant that I stay behind her, so I was trying to slow down also so I wouldn’t pass her. I was going pretty much at turtle speed, but since we were on a hill, I had to keep braking steadily. I made the mistake of clamping down on the left brake only, which Bicycle 101, makes you stop short and sent me flying over the handlebars. I know this now. Please excuse my stupidity, I haven’t rode a bike since I was in my 20s and taught Mazzy on a bike with pedal breaks. Looking back, I’m pretty sure I remember the guy who rented the bikes to us explaining how the hand brakes work to Mazzy and I didn’t pay attention because I’m a grown adult who should know such things. FACE PALM.

Anyway, I flipped over the handlebars and hit the ground on my chin and chest. I’m not sure how I did this, except I was probably trying my best to protect my face, and when I landed, I had this moment where I thought I had cracked my chest plate and couldn’t breathe. This was the scariest moment because about 1000 things crossed through my mind. We were alone on a bike path and I wondered what Mazzy would do if I passed out or was unable to move. It took me a few seconds to realize I was still alive, able to move and get back on my feet. Then I tried my best to laugh it off and make Mazzy believe that I wasn’t in pain or freaking out.

Clearly though, I was bleeding pretty badly on my chin (made evident by Mazzy’s horrified face of concern) and the large amount of blood in my hand after I touched my face. My hands and knees were cut up and bleeding too and I told Mazzy that we were going to walk our bikes back to the shop. We had only been riding about 20 minutes so we didn’t have too far to go.

Mazzy collected my things that had fallen on the ground— sunglasses, my wallet and my phone and put them in the bike basket. “Look, Mom! Your phone didn’t crack!” I hobbled alongside her as we walked back, trying to downplay the pain. Mazzy asked me if I was okay, gave me updates on my wounds and didn’t complain once.

When we got back to the shop, they called a member of their First Aid team to come look at my cuts. I am not good with blood and he had me lie down on the floor because I turned a crazy shade of white while he was tending to my wounds. He decided that the cut on my chin needed stitches and sent me to the hospital.

In the cab, on the way to the hospital, I said to Mazzy, “You better remember this trip for all the awesome stuff we did up until this point and not the time mommy fell on her face.” She said, “Does this mean we don’t have to go on the lake cruise?” (That was the one thing we had scheduled that she didn’t want to do and it was next on our agenda.)

I laughed and said, “No, we don’t have to go on the cruise.”

Then she said, “I was trying to make you laugh and it worked!!!”

I always try to find the positives in things and the truth is, falling while Mazzy and I were totally alone on a bike path was pretty scary. The silver lining is that Mazzy was great for the entire ordeal. Being in Canada, we waited endlessly to see the doctor.

While we were waiting, we downloaded finger war games to play on my phone together. We discovered the game Helix and took turns trying to beat each other’s scores. When we realized the cafeteria had closed before we had a chance to eat dinner, we ordered a pizza to the waiting room.

At 9pm, after we had been waiting for six hours, we called Mike to give him an update. He couldn’t believe how long we had been sitting there. “We’re actually having fun here, Dad,” Mazzy said. It’s true. We were.

When I finally got in to see the doctor, he no longer thought I needed stitches. Apparently, you need to have stitches within the first two hours or else it starts to heal on its own and there is no point. So eight hours total for a band aid.

At least we walked away with a good story to tell?

I figured I would have a scar to remember the trip by, but the good people at Mederma saw my story on Instagram and sent me their Advanced Scar Gel, which is the #1 doctor recommended scar treatment, clinically proven to visibly reduce the appearance of both new and old scars, including acne scars, burns, cuts, and other injuries.

I’ve been using the scar gel once a day for the past few weeks and I’ m really surprised by how well it works. One thing my dermatologist told me was to massage the area while applying the gel. There was a scar tissue build up that was creating a bump along my chin which made the whole area worse. Honestly, the bump felt so hard that I thought it was a protruding bone or something, so I was shocked that the massaging worked. It’s now flat, the redness has gone and you can barely see the little white line where it was cut.

The other day, Mazzy saw me applying the gel in the mirror. “Mom! The scar is gone!”

“Yep. Now we can look back and only remember the trip for the good stuff.”

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This post was sponsored by Mederma, but my bike accident and my busted up chin was all my own.