I'm not trying to ruin the party on purpose. Really, I promise! But . . .

We all know that a Helium bends case will almost certainly involve the central nervous system compared to nitrogen. We all know that our bouyancy when we first finished up our initial training on rebreathers was nothing like it was when we dived on open circuit. We all entered into rebreathers understanding that we would need to start off making entry level dives until we were fit to go beyond these limits.

With this being said, I made sure to maintain my depth and narcotic limits within the zone where I did not need helium to stay clear in the head while I was working on my skills after my initial training. This was especially hard for me to do when I went wall diving on a liveaboard trip, but I did it even then.

It was only after I felt ready to proceed, contacted my instructor, and completed the additional training that I started back using helium in my diving again. I'll bet that I even learned a thing or two by taking that second class and progressing according to the training protocols.

Was it easy to hold back after making open circuit helium dives to 250 feet before having to go back to the "baby pool?" No, it wasn't. Did I like parting with more money to essentially re-take a trimix course after I was already trimix certified on open circuit? You know that this part probably hurt the most. However, had I rushed before I was ready, and then had a flight to the surface that resulted in the potential exposure to a major bends hit on helium, I'll bet that I would have been a lot more upset about the final outcome than I did by waiting until I fulfilled the formal requirements.