For those of you who haven't seen the picture yet... I have suffered my first scuba injury. No big deal, it looks worse than it really it, but I'm bummed that I can't dive for a few weeks. Even worse, it happend on my first deep dive in Catalina, so I could not continue on to do my wreck dives, and today, I am missing out on diving the Yukon down in San Diego. Cory and Davis went, and I'm super jealous that I had to stay home, BUT... am thankful that mask squeeze is all I got, and nothing worse.
So, how did this happen and what is mask squeeze? Basically mask squeeze is when you don't equalize the pressure in your mask. At deeper depths, and at this case, 98 feet, it turns your mask into a suction cup... pretty much, it's painful, and blood vessels burst in your eye and you're forced to not dive until things clear up. (sadness)
We were in Catalina for our deep and wreck dives. First dive of the day was a deep dive. The plan was to decend to 100ft then to check out how colors change at that depth with less light and then swim up the slight incline, hopefully checking out giant sea bass and bat rays. I was already a little apprehensive about this dive. Just the depth. But I was assured by many other experienced divers, including Cory, that diving at 100ft is no different than diving at 30ft, just the air intake is more at a deeper depth. We geared up and kicked out to the far corner buoy... that was tiring. I was feeling ok, but I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. Our instructor Sean, descended with the first two divers, Davis and another guy in our class, can't remember his name. Cory and I descended with a Dive Master candidate, Daryl.
As we were descending, I was doing alright. I didn't much care for using the large chain to hold onto as a tactile reference for the descent, but that was part of the dive instructions, so that's what we did. The chain was a bit rough since it was slightly choppy up above with all of the boating activity in the harbor (4th of July weekend). A few times, holding the chain made me dizzy, but when I looked up, it would go away. At about 50-60 feet, I start to have trouble equalizing, so we stopped for a second until I was able to equalize my ears. When I felt comfortable, we started to descend again. I noticed at about 70 feet that there was some pressure on my mask, but for whatever reason, it didn't last long. I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable, but I wanted to push on because I figured that it was just my nerves. As the Dive Master kept asking me if I was ok, I recall that my "ok" back to him was delayed, mostly because I was uncomfy. And then I looked down, and noticed that the first group was at the bottom and we were about 10 feet above them. Within the last 5-10 feet of our descent, I felt a HUGE surge of pressure on my face and began to get disoriented. When we hit the bottom, the whole ocean started spinning and I thought that I was going to throw up. Sean, my instructor, approached me to begin the skills part of the dive, and I'm told that's when he noticed that I was not right. He flashed me the "ok", and I violently shook my head NO (which made me feel worse). I continued to feel like I was spinning out of control. In all of this disorientation, I had no idea that my wonderful, brave husband had noticed that something was wrong almost immediately when we got to the bottom and grabbed my waist, for fear that I would bolt for the top, as a panicked diver would normally do. THANK GOD for our rescue class!!! It was fresh in our minds, and I knew that the last thing I wanted to do is ascend quickly and risk decompression illness. So, as uncomfortable and in pain as I was, I stayed calm and waited for Sean to assess the situation, and hoped that he would take us up as quickly as safely possible. Plus, I remember saying to myself that Sean would kill me if I panicked underwater and that I better stay calm and not race to the top... hahaha! He got a good laugh when I later told him that.
We began our ascent. Again, for a moment, I had no idea that Cory was holding on to me. The only thing that was alleviating the spinning was crushing Sean's hand during the ascent. In fact, he had to take his hand away for a minute to check his computer, and I quickly grabbed it. It's amazing, the feeling that you get, when you can't cry. It's all I wanted to do. I was in so much pain and spinning out of control. And I couldn't cry into my regulator. I remember starting to shake and "blubber" into my regulator. And I remember feeling like I was in a sky diving freefall, spinning the whole time. Weird. I do remember when we were about half way, feeling someone behind me kick, and then I felt slightly calmer knowing that it was Cory holding me the whole time. It felt like FOREVER to get to the top. We hit our 3 minute safety stop at 15ft. I remember Sean signaling to us after 1 minute that he was going to head back down, and I freaked out thinking that he was saying that I had to go back down, and I started to "cry" and shake my head NO. He assured me, not me, just him.
After the LONGEST 3 minutes of my life, we finally surfaced, I spit my regulator out of my mouth and started to cry. My eyes were in SO MUCH PAIN. I couldn't open them, and I started to think that I injured myself worse than I did! Cory inflated our BCs so we were buoyant, then we were instructed to wait while Sean went and got the rest of the group. Cory calmed me down and just talked me through everything and helped me to relax. He said that my eyes were pretty swollen and that we could go to a doctor if I needed to. I did continue to cry. It was painful, no joke. The group finally surfaced... and Sean and Cory towed me in. I remember crying because I had thought that I had ruined the dive for everyone. And of course, everyone assured me to stop apologizing and that was not the case at all. My dive buddies are so understanding! They assisted me out of the water and helped me take my gear off... and that was the end of my diving for the rest of the trip.
We got some ice to make the swelling go down, I took some Tylenol as well. It took a while for my vision to become clear again. As we all retold the story, Sean commended us for staying so calm. He said that, first of all, in all of his diving, he had never seen that happen... of course, I am the fluke accident. And second, how impressed he was that I didn't start bailing for the top once I started to feel uncomfortable. Davis was already at the bottom once I got there, and he said that he saw me shaking my head NO and he was worried with what was going on. Cory said he saw me go kinda limp at the bottom and he said he was worried when Daryl was asking me if I was "ok" and my responses were delayed. Poor hubby... he said he was really worried about me and thought that I had passed out... and the only thing that offered some relief was that he saw the air bubbles coming from my regulator. Sean said that my poor little face looked all scrunched up in my mask and that my eyes look like a boxer's eyes after a huge fight. Yikes.
Anyhoo, so here I am today. We were supposed to go dive the Yukon (a Canadian destroyer that was sunk off the coast of Mission Bay) today. I'm so bummed. Cory and Davis are there as we speak... (sigh). Oh well... again, I am thankful that it was just mask squeeze and nothing major. I suffered burst blood vessels in both eyes, bruising all over my face... apparently I'm going to look like I was in a fight... and lost... haha!
Here are more "FUN" pics to remember my first and LAST mask squeeze experience:
This is me the next day with an ice pack on my face! (Yeah 4th of July)... and we had an Angels game to go to that night.
This is me at Day 3... the bruising is starting...
On a funnier note... yesterday at the Angels game... which, btw, THEY WON! 11-4 against the Orioles... GO ANGELS! In an attempt to catch some toy baseball that they had tossed into the crowd during the 7th inning stretch, I accidentally spilled a small amount of beer on a boy in front of me. I managed to scare the shit out of him and his mother with my eyes while apologizing... I've probably scarred him for life... HA!!!!
Everyone wish me luck on a speedy recovery... I want to get back to diving, but will be safe about my return and not push it.
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