TheBanyanTree: Ouch

[Laura]

klutz.  graceless.  clumsy.

Damn dog gates.

I turned the heater up too high in my bedroom, and popped the breaker.  I went ahead and 
took Matt to his big Christmas banquet (a classic Three Stooges movie in its own right, but 
I'll tell that one later), and pulled the van into the garage when I got home.

I un-popped the circuit breaker, and went upstairs.  I noticed the Christmas lights hadn't 
come back on when I un-popped the breaker, so I grabbed a flashlight and went out front to 
re-set the timer.  The lights came right on, no worries.  I remembered seeing the back lights 
weren't on either, so I came back into the house, walked through the living room, and 
stepped over the dog gate into the kitchen.  At least, that was the plan.

Instead, three of the toes on my left foot went *between* the wires of the gate, rather than 
*over* the gate.  I had already started the next stride before my brain registered the fact that 
the left foot was still in the air, and not on the ground.  When I lifted the right foot, for some 
strange reason, I toppled over the gate onto the kitchen floor, and right on top of Angel (one 
of the dogs).  As I was falling face first, I thought... "gee, maybe I ought to bend my knees a 
little and try to land on my hands and knees instead of my face and the dog."  Ok, so it 
wasn't quite so eloquent as that.  I think the actual words I was thinking were "OH SHIT!"

Still, it had the same result.  I managed to bend my knees enough to keep my face from 
hitting first, instead landing on my left knee and heel of my left hand.  It was just enough to 
keep from killing the dog.  Seriously - I thought for a second I had broken her back.  I started 
to reach for her to make sure she was all right, when the pain hit.  I screamed.  Sorry, I 
know I'm supposed to be the brave, high threshold of pain chick, but yah, I screamed.  I 
thought for a couple of minutes there I had broken my kneecap.  I kept screaming, because 
the pain kept paining.  I was sure that in just a minute the pain would subside, but it didn't.  I 
didn't even notice Rob hovering over the other side of the gate with the phone until he 
yelled, "MOM!  ARE YOU OK?  WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?!?!??"  I couldn't even 
answer him.  The pain was incredible.

Then suddenly, like a switch being turned off, the pain stopped.  Maybe I blew a mental 
circuit breaker?  I stopped screaming, and sat up.  My knee popped, and that hurt too, but 
not badly.  Rob just looked at me as if I had gone mad.  Maybe I have!  He said, "Are you 
ok?"  I said, "I don't know.  I think so."  He handed me the phone and said, "I guess you can 
call 911 if you need to, huh?"  and grinned at me as he beat a quick retreat to his bedroom.

I pulled my pant leg up, half expecting to see bone poking through the skin.  Of course there 
wasn't.  Just a nice red mark on the top half of my kneecap.  I guess I landed on it hard 
enough to pop it out of its track (I have bad knees anyway, and a dislocated kneecap is not 
uncommon for me, it's just not usually this violent.) and stretch the tendons.

That's when I noticed my foot.  The clips holding the gate together had given way when I 
fell, but they caught my foot and tore about 4 gouges out of the top.  I have tough feet, they 
are hardly even bleeding, but dang!  they sting like the devil!

As I'm sitting here typing, my left wrist, elbow, and shoulder are all starting to throb.  My 
inner thigh on the left is starting to complain a little, and my breastbone and ribs are starting 
to ache.  And I still have to go get Matt from his banquet in a couple of hours.  I hope 
nobody un-pops that mental circuit breaker that controls the pain.

It's gonna be a loooooooong night.

-- 
Laura
wolfljsh at gmail.com
My Blog - http://wolfsinger.wordpress.com