History repeats itself...sort of...

DISCLAIMER: I'm FINE. That's all. Now you can keep reading.



You think I'd learn the first time.

But I didn't.

So the second time, you think I'd learn for sure.

Uh.

Nope.

Apparently not.

Almost twenty years ago I was getting ready to go out to some field hockey thing. But I never made it. Because I flew down the stairs and went to the hospital instead. With my parents and my sisters. They had to repeat the very painful x-rays because they didn't work the first time. My mom bought me a Coffee Crisp...strange things that you remember. So diagnosis: destroyed knee...almost. According to the doctors, based on the way I fell, I should have torn my patella and most of the ligaments around it. I strained everything and moved, but didn't dislocate, the fibula...I'm talented.

I earned myself a soft, very hot cast and two weeks on crutches in June when we had no classes, just exam prep time. I did well on my exams that year...

Just over four years ago I decided it would be fun to repeat that exercise on the stairs in the blue house. I didn't fare as well. A few hours, one landlady, five paramedics, two ambulances (including a transfer from one to the other in the middle of Broadway in the middle of rush hour) and I was at the hospital. It took eight hours to get a diagnosis. I had a nurse who thought I was there for the morphine and a neighbour with dementia who had a very lucid moment when she told the nurse "This is a hospital. You're supposed to help people here, not hurt them more" seconds after the nurse forced me to a seated position and I screamed loud enough to wake the dead.

I had a fractured vertebrae. It hurt. A lot. I was off work for three months. It was evil. You can read more about it here.

So last night, I thought I'd try again. At Alex's parents house (which, interestingly, has the same floor plan as the house where I first fell down the stairs). With J standing on the top step. I apparently yelled very loud. Alex had flashbacks of 2006. J started crying. Grandma and Papa came very, very quickly...

My back hurts where it hit the steps partway down. My left thumb and the outside edge of my right hand are bruised and sore. I ache. All over. But I'm fine. Alex gave me Tylenol before I went to bed and I'm sure that helped - at least I got a decent sleep. J keeps asking my why I fell down and why I yelled so loud and why she cried...even though I'm moving fairly well, she's not sure I'm okay. She just told me it would be "better for me" if I stayed home from the park today...

They say things happen in threes...that's three tumbles down the stairs for me, so I've decided either I'm cursed and I should stay away from stairs permanently or I've had my three tumbles down the stairs and we're good...