Twice in Three Days

I fell down the steps on Saturday. Just the last two steps. I wasn’t paying attention to which step I was on, I thought I was on the last one, and I rolled my ankle.

This happened just a few hours before I hosted a dinner party at my house – which I might say was no less a Dinner Party of All Parties. (More on this later.) For now, I will say it is a humbling thing to be the sitting hostess. But humility seems to be my companion these days.

Swollen, puffy, purple.
Iced, elevated, miserable.
I spent a couple of days that way.

And then I’d like to tell you that it just didn’t get better so I went in for X-rays. But since I choose to be honest, vulnerable, transparent, and ridiculous sometimes, I’ll tell you the blue-sky honest truth.

It was nearly better. And then I fell down the stairs yesterday. This time, from the top. Rolled my ankle. The same ankle. And by the time I stopped tumbling and hissing words I only say when the boys aren’t home, my ankle had swollen round and was instantly bruising like a banana.

Okay, one fall down the stairs is permissible. Even one we might feel compassion for. But for crying out loud, two falls in three days? Tricia, hold on to the freaking railing.

It’s not necessarily a good sign when you can recognize the staff and exam rooms of the ER.

“Oh, we’ve been here before.”
“I remember this exam room.”
“I think she’s the same girl who took my insurance information last time.”
“His name is Dr. Lung. What are the odds that someone named after anatomy would proceed into medical school?”
I remembed Dr. Lung. And I remembered that we stabbed at this cheap pun the last time he was our attending physician.

Keeping with the theme of forced humility, I had to tell various medical personnel that this was a recurring injury. I had fallen down the stairs. Twice.

On a side note, while the doctor was examining my ankle (and my knee and my shoulder, each of which had been unresaonbly strained in my attempts to rescue myself), I was surprised by the comfort of skin-to-skin contact. His warm hand on my ankle. Skin on skin. It doesn’t happen often; I didn’t know I was missing it. There were no sparks of electricity between me and the doctor, but I forgot how essential and comforting is the gift of touch.

I miss it.

Anyway, X-rays show no fractures (and the X-ray tech had the shortest neck I’ve ever seen; his head looked precariously balanced directly on his shoulders), but I have some badly sprained ligaments. So I’m splinted, iced, and confined to the couch for the next three days at least.

And so, I am resting. Oh, my great day, I am resting.  I shall spend the day with the writings of Shauna Niequist, Brene Brown, Natalie Goldberg, and Donald Miller.  With a sprinkling of Percocet or Vicodin.  (Which means I’ll probably need to reread everything later.)

Tricia Lott Williford

Comments are closed

  1. I think it calls for Chicken Pot Pie 🙂

  2. Oh Tricia, get better my friend!

  3. Conspiracy – I’d say someone wants you to take that three days off as prescribed last month. Throw in some Aesop or Milne or Seuss, maybe Tolkien or Lewis or Dickens, just to make sure your mind takes a break too. May you heal completely, and the boys spoil you rotten 🙂

  4. Tricia, I’m so sorry for your falls and injuries! Please don’t fall off the couch.

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