Ever wonder how it can be that one day you have tremendously great luck and the next it seems like everything falls into the toilet and you cannot recover from anything thrown at you? I know I have.
Case-in-point. I had recently regained what I felt was most of my mobility following major foot reconstruction, surgery and rehabilitation/recovery, was exercising again regularly, had greatly improved mobility and activity level and then wham. I fall down a flight of stairs!
I remember thinking as I was falling, oh this isn’t good and wow this is gonna hurt. When I landed at the bottom of an entire flight of stairs in a crumpled mess after hitting my head 3 times, my shins, knees, hips, ribs and back numerous times as I rolled down the flight, I remember thinking, open your eyes and see how bad it is. Once I did, I took a minute to quit shaking and gathered my senses to try to upright myself. Ok, I thought, at least I am still in one piece or I think I am anyway!
The employees of the building came running because the heard the loud crash of me falling down the cement stairs. I am not sure at that point which was more humbling…actually taking that tumble or the injured pride over how ridiculous I looked sprawled out in the stairwell. I managed to get myself to a seated position on one of the lower level stairs. The questions came pouring in…are you alright…what happened….did you hurt anything…do you need an ambulance….should I call an ambulance….and so on.
I was a bit dazed and my head hurt, my foot hurt and so many other things hurt in a dull pain kind of way. I stopped shaking enough and my vision returned from dizzy to a little more stable so I could actually begin to touch to see where I might be injured. Turns out the two things that hurt the worst initially were my recently repaired right ankle and my head in several places. After sitting a spell on the stairs I felt I was capable of getting up and moving down to the bottom of the first floor to go into the offices of the building owner at the insistence of its manager to complete an “incident report”.
We completed that exercise and I started to pack up my belongings in my office to head to the Urgent Care center to determine whether I had anything seriously wrong with permission from the building owners to do so at their expense. Trip to the ER was uneventful, with the exception that it confirmed that I had miraculously not broken anything, but had numerous sprains, contusions and bruising. The ER Doctor suggested I see my foot doctor to determine how bad the foot was…which was now swelling and would not fit back into my shoe…and was a glorious color of green. I paid the bill and headed back home for the day. The Doc was available the next day to see me. He took a look and thought I needed to have further investigation into the now purple, black, green and swollen foot.
The MRI was a comedy of errors as well. First the machine that could handle my metal in my foot broke down and postponed the test being done. Then once they got me into a machine, the position they needed my foot caused me to shake uncontrollably…probably because it hurt so much….and it took them 2 tries to get me into a position they could actually do the test. Post MRI and further consultation, my foot was badly soft tissue injured but there appeared to be no damage to the surgical reconstruction. Thank God! I was put back into my favorite accessory…a walking pneumatic boot, to protect my foot from further damage and to allow me mobility while it healed.
Next hurdle…some two weeks into the healing process, I received a letter from the building owner’s insurance company stating they were denying my claim. Claim? What claim? I didn’t file a claim. I gave them medical bills that they had agreed to pay and nothing more. What?
In closing this post, I would say that I know how lucky I am and I am eternally grateful to the army of angels that watched over me as I tumbled down those stairs. My injuries could have been so much worse, and ultimately I could have had something much more major happen to me and I know that. Both physicians I saw told me they were incredibly amazed at my fortune and the fact that I hadn’t broken a thing in that fall. Given the contusions they could see and feel, the state of my head bumps and my foot, they were amazed that I had fared as well as I had. Funny, me too!
I thank God for the legion help of angels he placed on those stairs to help cushion my fall. As bad as it was, it could have turned out far differently. And in the end, the building owners did pay the medical bills. While I was in the middle of all of it I thought I would never get it all straightened out but once again while I was Overcome By Events, I did get to the finish line able to move on successfully to see what’s in store next!