Falling

There's been some falling going on. Hearing about healthy people in their mid 30's falling doesn't have the same affect as hearing "grandma fell" -- but it's amazing how badly they can go even when you are young and healthy.

The Wife lost her footing on some ice-slicked stairs last night, hurting her wrist and hip. We're all glad she didn't hit her Coccyx, which has a tendency to break under these circumstances. She's a bit gimpy but the Arnica homeopathics are working quite well already. She of course fell on the same side as an old injury, as we all know old (and new) injuries are magnetic, and attract further damage.

The old injury was from a 27' fall she took in college while up in a scissor lift hanging theater lights. She fell onto rows of theater chairs "in the only way possible not to end up with at least multiple broken bones or more likely paralyzed" to paraphrase the doctors. Nothing was broken but it took years of physical therapy to get her body to settle back into a workable state, she was a solid bruise from neck to ankles.

This experience has erased in her the desire to ride roller coasters and other carnival rides that involve heights.

This last year T. took a strange and expensive fall as well. He was in the Pearl, unloading some delicate cargo out of the back of his car. The only spot he could find was right at a street tree, so the door and angle and tree created a bizarre spot for him to unload his stuff. He turned in a strange way, his foot went out, and he went down, shattering his cargo all over the place and dislocating his kneecap. Boom, just like that, immobilized. When I arrived we tried to splint it up so we could lift him to get him into our car, and the pain was so intense he went gray and shocky looking. We were forced to call an ambulance. It took two doses of some zippy new intravenous pain medication (one of the paramedics leaned over and said into T.'s ear in a strangely gleeful way "this stuff is brand new, let us know what you think"), a space-age inflatable splint, and 4 paramedics to get him up into the gurney.

The dislocation ended up being something the doctor could "reduce" right in the E.R.. We had T. home and getting home-visit from acupuncturist Jon Schell within a couple hours. With intensive acupuncture, he made his flight to India not 10 days later, and had no problems with his knee the whole trip. It was amazing how fast the acupuncture worked to stitch him back up.

And now to go wrestle with banks and insurance agencies to arrange for a replacement car.

Enjoy your working and pain free limbs,

Bp