I have spent a few days away from my computer. Hopefully I have not lost too many readers during my hiatus. There is a reason for the interruption in my writing and it is not a pleasant one. If there was ever a chance of my playing a competitive game of any kind of ball, it is over now. I don't see my body recovering at this point in my life to being able to take part in any kind of physical competition or activity
Last Friday night was the beginning of a long weekend for me. Here at the company we have two designated floating holidays. Each year the company looks at the calendar and finds how holidays land during the year. This year Independence Day landed on a Monday and so the company decided that the Tuesday following July fourth would be one of the floating holidays. I was looking at a relaxing four day weekend to get stuff done around the house and whatever or just to relax.
We had decided to burn some papers in our outdoor fireplace on Friday night after the sun went down. They were private papers that had personal information on them and since we did not feel comfortable throwing them away we decided to burn them. So when the sun went down and gathered a group of papers to take out side and burn. I was having a tough time getting the fire to start and to keep burning. It just couldn't seem to continue to burn.
I decided to put a little lighter fluid on the papers to get the fire started and so began my quest for the fluid. I knew it would be in the garage somewhere, just wasn't sure where. I looked all over the place. I looked on shelves, on top of file cabinets, on the garage floor even. It could be anywhere. Then I saw it. It was on the top shelf that bordered concrete steps that went down to the basement. The only way to get to the fluid was to go back by the stairs, climb up on the railing and snatch it. After you have retrieved the object you have to slowly make your way down, trying to land a foot on the top most stair that you can reach. This was where my downfall was.
As I stretched my leg back I thought I felt my toe drag across a step and so went down to plant my foot and continue to climb down. My foot missed however and my whole body went swinging forward as though I was on a set of parallel bars. I knew at this point that I was going to go down and prepared my self in that second and a half to fall as well as I could.
A second and a half is not very long and before I knew it I was horizontal to the earth and falling straight down towards the concrete steps. I estimate that I fell at least three feet straight down on the stairs. The pain was excruciating. I screamed in pain and continued to do so. I did not know if I could move or not but I managed to crawl up the stairs and towards the kitchen door.
By this time Barb had heard me and had opened the garage door and allowed me to crawl in and collapse on the living room floor. After a few minutes of intense pain and hardly being able to talk we decided a trip to the emergency room was in order. Barb called our doctor and he instructed us to get to the hospital. The next call was to my son who would come over and help me out to the car and take me to the hospital. It seemed like it took him forever to get there.
The ride to the hospital was painful. Every time the car turned or hit a bump in the road pain would shoot through my back. I did not know that the pain I was feeling now would get a lot worse by the time the evening was over.
We pulled into the hospital and using Barb's cane, I made my way into the emergency room. A wheel chair was brought to me but it hurt my back to sit on it. They did not waste any time getting me back to an examining room where I was expected to climb up on a hospital bed. After I got settled and stopped moving around tha pain seemed to fade just a bit.
They gave me a tetanus shot and took a history of my medications that I currently take. The doctor came in and did a little talking but I could not say who he was or what he asked. The only thing that was registering in my mind was the pain that was ripping my insides apart. The worst was yet to come though. There were still x-rays that had to be take of my back to be sure nothing was broke or cracked.
A man named Andrew came to take me to x-ray. The ride was a little rough and it hurt but at least something was being done. Trying to get off of the bed and onto the table for the x-ray turned out to be a very difficult and very painful trial. After a few x-rays were taken of my back I had to make my way back onto the bed. It was worse going back to the bed than it was going to the table. I eventually made it and Andrew guided me back to where Barb and Brett were waiting.
Not a lot to tell from here. They gave me a couple of shots for pain which practically knocked me out. It did make the ride home a lot easier on my back.
Prescriptions for pain pills, anti-inflammatory pills and muscle relaxants were given to me for the duration of the pain. I took some of those pills but don't really like to. the back is still in a lot of pain and I discovered two days later that my ankle was swollen and discolored. They never took x-rays of the ankle. Everything else was hurting so bad I had no idea that the ankle was even injured.
Well, that is where I have been over the last few days. I haven't felt much like writing but just wanted to sit and relax and try to make my back not hurt. I am back to writing now and the stories should continue now.
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