I suppose if every cloud has a silver lining, then maybe every silver lining has a cloud? That’s the analytical side of me, I know…the part of me that looks for reason and symmetry in every detail of my life. Cause and effect, ebb and flow, curse and blessing…
I don’t truly believe that every good thing has to be balanced with bad, or vice versa, but when you’re laying crumpled on the floor, either staring up at the ceiling or spitting carpet out of your mouth (as I have done both in the last three weeks), these are the thoughts that might wander through your head. Or, you could be more logical and just stick with the first thought that wanders through all our minds:
WHAT THE %$#&@ JUST HAPPENED TO ME???!!!!!
And so it was that I found myself asking that very question at 10:30 two nights ago. An hour earlier we had all four ventured upstairs to bed, put away all clean towels and clothes, and settled in for a good night’s sleep. A sleep that would be very short-lived. I imagine that I had been asleep for about twenty minutes, not yet in a well-deserved REM cycle, but certainly oblivious to the room around me. The silence of my mind was suddenly pierced with my daughter’s scream – a blood-curdling, baby-girl, something-is-so-terribly-wrong-that-words-just-won’t-do scream. Amazingly, I believe she caught her breath twice and renewed the force of her scream. Dom and I sat bolt upright in bed and immediately scrambled out. Frazzled, confused, and terrified of whatever hell was breaking loose in our home, we ran to Victoria. And I do mean RAN!! I saw Dom make the hallway as I rounded the edge of our bed, fast on his heels. All I recall in the next seconds is that I lurched forward, as if some evil spirit had shoved me from behind, and I saw the wall of the hallway coming at me fast. I don’t recall sticking my arms out, though the bruises prove otherwise, but I do know that I broke my fall…With. My. Face.
The next moment, I was in a heap on the floor, my arms twisted beneath me, my face burning, and my neck killing me. I could hear Dom ask if I was okay, to which I replied in a long moan that I was not, and then I just kept moaning, trying to figure out what happened, and how in the world I was going to get up. I heard Victoria crying in the hall about five feet away from me, and I knew I must look a fright. I also heard her explaining to a very confused and upset Dom that she thought she heard someone stomping, and believing that someone was coming to get her, she screamed. Apparently, her Fight-Or-Flight does not include flight, as mine does.
“Damn!” I thought to myself. Less than twelve hours earlier I had been released from the doctor with news that my elbow had only been sprained in the fall I sustained two weeks ago. Laying on the floor – unintentionally – for the second time in a month, I feared that I had reinjured the elbow. It wasn’t until Dom helped me to my feet that I realized my elbow was fine. It was the rest of me that needed help.
Somehow in the fall, through the process of skidding on my face before coming to rest in the hallway, I had jammed my neck, skinned my knee, bruised the heels of both hands, and scathed the side of my face – which earned me a nice-sized goose egg above one eyebrow. (My inability to breathe the next morning would reveal that I had also most likely bruised a rib.) As we lay back down in bed after all the dust had settled, Dom repeatedly asked me which part hurt the most.
“Seriously, honey? I have five points of impact that are screaming right now, and you want me to prioritize them? Can you just get me something for the pain and we’ll call it a night?”
And call it a night, we did. With the kids both nestled into a pallet on the floor just below my footboard, (‘cause they both heard the stomping, ya know!) we all eventually drifted back to peaceful sleep. But not before I felt the bed shaking from Dom’s silent giggling – as he recalled to himself the trauma of the evening, his running into the hallway, seeing Aaron and Vic safely in the hall, and then turning around to find me…on the floor?? It all seemed incurably hysterical to him at that point. I asked him if he agrees with Mickey’s assessment from two weeks ago… that I fall very quietly. 😉
I bravely went to work the next morning, moving at a snail’s pace from the pain, only to be fussed over by my dear co-workers as they told me that a head injury and rib injury should not be ignored, and they convinced me to call the doctor. The doc saw me mid-morning and x-rayed my face, knee and ribs. I am prohibited from kneeling, lifting, bending, pushing, pulling, running… and chewing crunchy foods, for at least the next few days. Yes, really.
My dad made an interesting point, from his law-enforcement perspective: “They tell us, if WE don’t make it to the scene safely, NO ONE is going to get the help they need! Even in an emergency, you have to slow down and be careful, babydoll.” Agreed.
Oh – and that evil spirit who was stomping up the stairs to steal my daughter? The kids determined that it was the rabbits, who have done this kind of thing before, just not with the same results. I recall that Marsha was thumping her back feet quite loudly this week, making me remember that night in December when I was awoken with such rabbit antics. And again I say, “Hasenpfeffer!”
It will likely be a few days before I stop feeling like I’ve been in a massive car wreck, and I will absolutely cringe if the bruise above my eye gets any more color to it. But hey – check it out:
My elbow isn’t broken!!!!! 🙂
