SEE IT ONLINE

Learn more about Boulder Creek, view water conditions and watch the flow of the creek on the Webcam. Visit www.bouldercolorado.gov / modules / mod_floodcam / viewcamera_large.htm

Summer in Boulder is characterized by a great many things, most of them possessing a sense of the carefree – strolls on Pearl Street, libations on rooftop bars, lounging at the Rez, hikes at Sanitas and, of course, tubing down the Boulder Creek.

Yet five years ago, one of these summer pastimes irrevocably changed my life.

It was late June 2003 and I was a blithe CU undergrad looking for something to do on a lazy summer day. It was a clear morning – one that held that vivid summer scent that makes you happy to be alive and to enjoy the day. A friend of mine and I decided to spend ours on the creek.

Just like this year, the late season snowfall was plentiful in¤’03. Still, signage of any type of warning on the dangers of tubing that day was scarce. When we went to go buy tubes at the Conoco station on Broadway and Arapahoe, the attendant did say he had heard the creek was wild that day and we should be careful. That was about it.

As we drove up Canyon, in order to find the perfect starting point, I saw the unwelcoming rapids and was instantly scared. We parked at an area referred to as Elephants Pass and we first took a little hike –my idea to put off our tubing adventure. My friend’s eagerness and bravado ended the hike early and took us back to our tubes.

As we walked down a trail toward the river, I got another omen. We encountered four white-haired adults – most likely in their mid-60s – who warned us that it was dangerous and we shouldn’t take the plunge. In a typical youthful way, we shook them off and marched on. Yet, when we arrived at the creek’s edge, my body tingled with dread and the absolute knowledge that I was going to die. I had never felt instinct like that before in my entire life, and should have listened to it, but at the insistence of my friend, I got in my tube. Within seconds, I hit a rock bump, was thrown out of my tube and the current took me away.

IS THIS THE END?

When I was in fifth grade, my parents went on a business trip and the group had gone river rafting somewhere in Colorado. My parents came back from the trip full of stories about a certain family friend that had flipped out of the boat and was stuck going down the river until the guide could make a rescue. I was sitting in the back seat of our 1992 sky-blue Toyota Previa as they told the story. Our family friend had remembered to go feet first down the river, as their guide had instructed, and came out safe. I don’t think my parents could have ever realized that this story would save my life a decade later.

As I plunged uncontrollably down the river that day, that was the first thing I thought of – feet first! Flailing around, I tried to catch a rock, slowly realizing I was losing the battle against the rocky embankments and swift current. I was only inhaling air every third breath and was being thrashed by rocks and fallen trees. For the first 30 seconds I could not believe this was happening to me. You couldn’t get more normal than me – a 19-year-old friendly college student with good grades, lots of friends, etc. But I knew this is how it was going to end.

DON’T CRY FOR ME

There are so many movies, books and other stories about how “life flashes before your eyes” once you are about to die. I don’t know who that has happened to, but let me tell you, it’s not true. In the few minutes I had to die on the Boulder Creek, I thought nothing of my life. I thought about everyone else’s life. I saw my dad laying fetal position crying next to my coffin, and I wondered how that random spring break boyfriend from the Bahamas would ever find out how I had died. I had this overwhelming sense of unimportance – I was going to ruin the lives of everyone who loved me. I wanted to scream to the world:

“My life is not important enough to stop living yours! Don’t bat an eyelash, don’t shed a tear – you have a life and go live it without me!”

But I had started losing the battle and slowly I gave myself to the river. I told my God that I was not ready to come to Him – I was knee-deep in college debauchery and, in my mind, I was not the good person I thought I should be when I was going face my maker. I was fully immersed for the last stretch and with some humor, noticed the rocks my head and body were hitting didn’t really hurt anymore.

I WILL SURVIVE

I cannot understand what happened next, but I chalk it up to my subconscious ability to survive. Out of nowhere, I felt pulled up toward a white light and threw my elbow out. I know, you cannot get more cliché than a white light. But I don’t, in any way, credit this towards a divine awakening. I believe, since I was underwater with my eyes closed, I was merely experiencing the visual sensation of opening my eyes while surfacing the creek, which was in direct sunlight.

My elbow hooked onto a rock and there I was – hanging on near the edge of the creek, eyes open and breathing. I almost lost grip of the rock and it jolted me so badly I began hugging that rock like one would hold a soon-to-be-gone lover.

Fate had it that I was about 20 feet away from a bridge that was a popular bike path for Boulder bikers in the summer. The first group who passed was a parent with their children. I yelled for help, but it was feeble and scolded myself: “Yell louder, you idiot!”

Soon after, a lone biker came into view and this time I really yelled. Things become very hazy after this.

THE FACELESS SAVIOR

My savior has no face in my memory, but I can remember that he seemed very mean. He said I was overreacting and kept on trying to get me to take his hand, stand up and walk out of the river. Though the “feet first” theory had saved my life (by virtue of the rocks hitting my feet first instead of my head), it had severely busted up my feet.

Once he had pulled me out, I sat on a rock and vomited water. My arms wrapped around my body as tightly as I could, I shook back and forth and muttered how I had almost died. It seemed that suddenly there was a crowd, and they wanted to know if I was with any one else. One specific woman got in may face and forced an answer – “Yes,” I said. “One other girl.” But why did no one see I had almost died?

Next thing I knew my friend was there, and my “mean savior” threw me on his back and hauled me off to an ambulance.

INVISIBLE PAIN

Painful days and weeks, both physically and mentally, followed. But my TMJ pain did not appear, and I still remained ignorant to what those three letters even meant for another six months.

TMJ stands for temporomandibular joint disorder, and is defined by Wikipedia as an umbrella term covering acute or chronic inflammation of the temporomandibular joint, which connects the lower jaw to the skull. It is a difficult ailment to treat.

As a result of my tubing accident that day, I am now a lifelong a TMJ sufferer. You cannot see my pain. There are no lesions, there is no cast, I am not missing a limb, I am not sick from radiation, my eyes are not yellow, I do not walk with a limp – yet my pain is just as debilitating.

I can think of all the reasons not to relive my journey – I want to shed these memories like I do my sweaty clothes after a long, hot day at the park. But where will the Rachel Stumpf’s in 20 years turn to?

There are little to no places to turn to when you experience TMJ-related pain. There are very few support groups, there is no one drug or cure-all procedure, and there is definitely no “Mayo Clinic” for the jaw impaired. I have sat in the darkness of my closet repeating pleas many times over the past several years. I have experienced great highs where I felt my treatment was on the right path, and dark lows where I am certain I will never find an answer. Hopefully one day I will, but in the meantime I must live with the pain.

This is only one story out of thousands of those suffering quietly from TMJ. I have met a young ballerina who bit on a nut wrong, a horse enthusiast who was thrown off her steed during a competition and a middle-aged woman for whom pain basically just started one day. I am not unique.

Yet five years later, as the Boulder Creek runs high and a new crop of CU students spend their first summers cavorting around Boulder, it is time I shared this story.