Falling

So there I was, lying on the concrete and thinking several things simultaneously.

First, I was replaying in my mind just what exactly had happened to make me fall so heavily to the sidewalk. I also was taking an inventory of what hurt and what didn't and deciding that my wrist might be sprained (it wasn't) and my ribs on the right side were hurt (they're sore).

And let's be honest, I couldn't help hearing that little voice in my brain saying, "A fall is often the beginning of the end for the elderly."  Oh please, I thought, I am only going on 63, please don't let that be elderly. Please, dear Lord, just let me be middle-aged.

Then the most serious thought entered my head. How am I going to get up? Oh not because I had done any damage to my hips or shoulders. Just the general issue I would have any time I was lying flat on the ground and had to figure out how to get upright without anything to grab hold of.

Turns out it wasn't difficult at all this time. Perhaps because the concrete was so damned cold or perhaps because I noticed that the neighbors would see me sprawled out there if they looked out their windows. No matter, I was vertical wth nary a grunt.

I had been carrying large empty packs used to ship our pictures, which we are finally starting to hang. The shipping packs are large and I couldn't see the ground, and in particular hadn't seen that there was a fairly significant drop-off beside the footpath just as it turns toward the trash bins. So that's how I put the tumble into stumble.

Anyhow, not much damage done. I am quite sore in one precise spot halfway up the ribs on the right. I don't think I cracked a rib, but then again if I did there isn't much they can do for me. Of course it hurts if I laugh or cough, and strangely enough for the past couple of days LK has been very, very funny. I do not, however, believe she is doing this to hurt me.

I put off telling LK for a while, knowing what would follow. Finally, though, I figured I would have to explain why I was wincing every time I took a deep breath. I thought I would make light of it, and told her that because the packing material was padded, I had actually bounced a few times when I landed.

She shot back that I probably would have bounced even without the packing material. Which, come to think of it, is how I learned that it hurts when I laugh.

She did, of course, have a few choice thoughts about all of this. After asking at least ten times whether I really wasn't hurt badly, she then reminded me of the time my Wii exercise program had asked me if I fell a lot when I walked. I did recall that.

And then she reminded me that we had recently discussed that I don't tend to notice the sort of things that tend to trip you as you walk. I remembered that discussion. In fact, I remembered it so well that I hadn't even told her how I tripped over the curb at the shopping center the other day.

And then she played the trump card. "I know you think I nag you about being more careful and taking better care of yourself, but I worry about you and I don't want you hurt."

After only a couple of days, the pain in my side is already much better. However, I am quite sure its long-term effects are going to last well into my old age.