Dec 13, 2015: I’m back at home following about a week in California (starting to see a trend here).  Hubby was with me for this trip.  Had unpacked and washed clothes and straightened house on Saturday and looked to Sunday to attempt to get all the Christmas stuff down and decorate for the first holiday that 4 of my grandkids would get to spend at my house.

Of course, hubby had reorganized attic – to the point I could find nothing.  Everything I’d carefully put aside the year before was now scattered to the attic winds – and there was no way to find what I wanted without literally taking down every box gathered for 30 years.  I was hot, hubby and I were fighting, and that’s when I spotted it: shiny blue plastic ornaments thrown haphazardly over into the insulation – just ever so slightly out of my reach.  Amazingly when I looked down, some angel had put down a board where once only ceiling drywall was.  It must have happened when the new roof was put on a few months prior I thought.  Of course, I stepped on it, straddling the joists, I-beam, stairwell opening and reaching across a low setting rafter.  It wasn’t even a second before I knew that the “board” was as thin as veneer and useless and I fell with my right leg all the way through – I-beam on my girl parts and face flying forward into the rafter.

I struggled upright confused by the spigot of blood flowing from my face.  I reached up to my nose only to realize something hanging from my face.  Hubby came running.  All I could say was “Give me a clean towel to stop the bleeding and call 911”.  At first he ignored me and tried to climb the attic stairs, but he was quickly and totally covered in blood which was now pouring out the stairwell as I tried to tell him I was seriously hurt.  Blood was pouring down my throat and out my nose.  He called 911.  I held on to the I-beam for dear life and prayed I wouldn’t pass out.

Long story short and 6 medic/firefighters later (including one named Craig who looked 12 but put up with me asking for a CT scan every 5 seconds for 30 min), I came down the stairs under my own power and nearly passed out on the gurney.  Husband looked like something out of a horror movie.  I got Fentanyl in my driveway and was taken as a Level II trauma to the closest facility able to handle the wreck that was my face.

For the record, when you come into the ER like that, you get a LOT of attention.  They x-rayed and CT scanned every inch of me.  Hell, the doc even did a pelvic exam.  I had emergency surgery, re-attaching my nose and fixing 8 bones in my face.  I was lucky.  2mm to the right and I would have lost my right eye.  I survived with post concussive syndrome.  RSD / residual chronic regional pain syndrome in right foot.  An even more unattractive nose.

So why this post so long after?  Well, 6 months later and after a trip to California (dun dun DUN), I manage another possibly more serious injury to my leg.

I am now left contemplating the meaning of it all:  I ask, myself, she who is not particularly accident prone, but is clumsy.  What in the world am I trying to tell myself?  I have suspicions.  More on that later.