Several years ago I wrote an autobiographical piece that traced a significant relationship in my life. In particular, it looked at one painful aspect that had gone unresolved for thirty years. Thus the first year of the relationship was laid out in some detail. The year was 1969, and the piece mentioned my college graduation, watching the first walk on the moon, and attending the demonstrations in Washington calling for the end to the war in Vietnam. 

That time period also included the original outdoor music festival at Woodstock (“three days of peace, love, and music”) which I attended. My essay, however, made no mention of that event. When asked why, I replied that it didn’t have anything to do with the story I was telling, and to bring it up would clutter my narrative.

I have now posted four pieces to this site which were written (although not necessarily dated) after December 16 without mentioning the rather significant event that occurred that day. To do so would have cluttered what I envisioned as the narrative of my Christmas season, complete with a posting of my family-famous essay, “A Child’s Christmas in Harrisburg.” That my narrative was somewhat curtailed and “Child’s Christmas” never appeared (maybe next year!) is due mostly to this event.

Quite simply, on December 16, a Thursday morning, I had a full day ahead of me. First, there was my spiritual growth group that meets most Thursdays and which I never miss. Then I was headed to Dickinson College to see about arranging for a poetry tutor for my Year of Writing Poetry Seriously, and then an afternoon spent in some quiet spot in the library there reviewing two folders stuffed with notes and drafts and odds and ends of ideas that I haven’t looked at in more than a year.

I was coming down the steps, balancing the folders, a copy of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (thankfully, I understand now, my one-volume edition) which I was going to use at the group session, and another book from my vast store of titles dedicated to teaching me how to write. Half way down, where the wall of the second floor ends and a new section of railing begins, I reached in through the pine and holly roping, reminding myself that this decoration, besides being “sheddy,” makes grasping the banister difficult, and making a mental note not to do this again next year.

I lost my footing and jingled all the rest of the way down the steps head first. The “head first-ness” was due to the fact that my right ankle turned under me, toppling me over. My forward progress was halted by the front wall of the house and the solid square edge of the door into the family room. The final thud was my head hitting the tiled floor.

Now as it happens, I have some experience with serious falls. In 1995, on The Feast of Stephen, I was walking up the driveway reading someone’s obnoxiously cheery Christmas letter (the kind where everyone is described as “our dear Someone” and all those dear someones have been incredibly busy succeeding at everything including the elimination of poverty and the establishment of world peace). Bah! Humbug! I was thinking as I stepped onto a patch of black ice (it really wouldn’t have mattered what color it was -- I wasn’t looking).

That fall snapped and displaced my right fibula a few inches above the ankle joint, requiring surgery, a procedure described as “internal reduction and fixation” -- that means they put a plate and four screws into my bone, to be carried there forever. I was in the hospital for three days, and in a cast for two months.

During that event, I knew that the bone was broken when I attempted to get up and saw my foot flopping like a fish at the end of my leg. This time the ankle was beginning to swell, but it wasn’t rubbery and I was able to use it to try to push myself up. I mentally ran through the whole event, determined that I had not lost consciousness, located my glasses, which were bent but not shattered (a concern of the utmost importance to me -- shattered lenses would be second only to a broken wrist on the disaster scale), and began to stand up.

It was the blood that got my attention, a lake of it (it seemed) pooling at the threshold between the hallway and the family room. I put my hand up to my head, back behind my right ear, and it came away looking something (at least to my imagination) like Jack Wolz’s hand in Godfather I after he discovers the horse’s head under his sheets.

Had I been home alone, I might have merely stanched the blood and gone on my way. I was certain that the ankle was not broken (I could stand on it, after all), and the flow of blood was already diminishing . My husband, however, peered at the wound, said, “My God, it looks like a slice of London broil,” packed me into the car, and headed for the nearest emergency room.

My husband, you will note, was speaking to me. His first concern had been whether or not I was wearing shoes. I had been wearing my favorite smooth-soled summer Birkenstocks back in ‘95, which he believed caused the whole mess. This time I did have my Reeboks already tied on. I believe they actually contributed to the accident, but if I hadn’t had them on I think I might still be lying at the bottom of the steps with Ron saying, “Don’t come crying to me if you’re not going to wear shoes!”

I walked into the emergency room under my own power, but the bloody white towel I was carrying got me some attention right away.

“I did not lose consciousness, my pupils are equal and reactive, my temperature is typically 97.6 so don’t take that as a sign of shock, I’m not pregnant, and I’m not allergic to anything,” I told the triage nurse.

“You didn’t by any chance take your own blood pressure on the way, did you?” he said. Then he questioned me, twice, about the fall -- “Now you fell on your own, right? You didn’t get pushed or hit?” It was a half hour before it dawned on me what he was getting at.

Thursday mornings I think are typically pretty quiet in a suburban emergency room. I was back home by noon, the time I’m usually home after my Faith with Friends session. I had a neat row (by others’ description -- I couldn’t see it) of sutures in my head and instructions not to wash my blood-caked hair until they came out (the start of a truly Bad Hair Week ). I was convinced that my ankle was merely sprained, but the radiologist who looked at my skull series (mild concussion, no fracture) persuaded me to have the ankle done too. 

There was a narrow separation “without displacement” just below the plate and screws. (This device shows up in the x-rays as a bright white foreign object appearing to float on my bone. “Ah, I see you’ve been in a hospital before,” said the orthopedic resident.) This means no surgery and a cast for just six weeks instead of eight.

Along about 4:30 that afternoon my adrenaline wore off and I ran out of blessings to count (e.g. -- this happened AFTER my trip to Washington and my Gaudete party, my glasses got bent but didn't shatter, I’m fully insured, have a ton of family and community support, etc.). I got very depressed, cried a lot, and screamed at everybody here, including Perfect Daughter whose main concern (after pronouncing the head wound "oogie-looking") seemed to be that she’d still have transportation to her many social engagements.

Two weeks later and I’m doing very well -- about where I was after four weeks with the first episode. The stitches are out, I have a new cast (that’s loose already, meaning the swelling has gone down even more), and I didn’t miss a single event I really wanted to participate in. 

Last time I had to cancel a January event I’d planned to attend because it was at a very rugged mountain retreat center with difficult accessibility even for the very abled. I’ll still have the cast on when I go to Cape May for a poetry workshop in the middle of January. I might have to forego a walk on the beach (I’ve never done so in the winter) but the facility is (I’m assuming) a conventional hotel, so I have no intention of canceling that.

Like the previous episode, this accident made me look around, take stock, feel grateful for a whole lot I’d (once again) taken for granted, and resolve to change certain contributory factors that should have been changed anyway. I’m limping a little into The New Millennium*, but I have a smile on my face.

(* I used to be a strong voice for that “There was no year zero so the new millennium really begins . . .” argument, but I gave it up as being futile, and not really very important, given the arbitrary nature of the way we reckon time. Now all I ask is the “millennium” be spelled right. On that I will never yield. NEVER!!)