Trip Inconvenience 2: The Fall

My son's house in California has multilevel floors. There a step down from the front-door entry area to the living room and kitchen, and another step down to the family room and deck.

The wife took a tumble the last time we visited, so I was particularly careful to always look down as I moved to a lower level.

Well, on the morning that we were set to visit my grandson's class for his "Spotlight Day" in the afternoon (his real birthday), I was out on the deck looking over the grassy ravine, trying to spot some of the wild turkeys that roam the development. Then, something moved off to the left -- it was a turkey hen, poking around the tall grass one house over' I was as close to a wild turkey as I had ever been.

So naturally, I wanted a picture. Unfortunately, my camera was upstairs in the bedroom. So I called to the wife, who was in the kitchen, and asked her to go upstairs and get my camera for me. Well, she was washing dishes and had to rinse her hands off, then dry them, before she could go upstairs. Impatient me, I ran upstairs myself.

When I got back downstairs, I was so intent on photographing the turkey before she left, that I forgot about the step down. I did my worse imitation of a dolphin belly flopping in the ocean, landing hard on my left side.

The wife came running over to help. I hadn't broken anything, but it felt like somebody had given me a knockout punch on the left side of my stomach (good thing I have lots of padding there). My elbow hurt, but there was no damage.

My left knee, on the other hand, was skinned. Oh no, not again, it was right on the stop that I damaged when I fell in the theater two years ago (except that time I skinned both knees).

Being well practiced in skinned-knee care, I knew what I needed -- a 3x3 gauze pad, an alcohol swab, some antibiotic cream, and some hospital tape. Cringing in pain, I hobbled around the house looking for a first-aid kit, and when I could find none, began planning how I was going to drive to a drug store and get the stuff I needed.

Luckily, the wife found a first-aid kit with exactly what I needed. Once I patched myself up, I jumped (well, more like "crabbed") into our rental, drove with the wife to Walmart, and bought a ton of stuff to tide me over for another week.

We made it to "Spotlight Day" and everything was just fine ... except that my knee hurt until I got back home. Oh, and I hurt my back too, and experienced sharp pain whenever I sneezed or, because that's the day the cold started getting really bad.

And that's not the end of it either. I'll tell you about one more thing the next time.