Review: -15/10 do not recommend.

My husband was just a few steps behind me, tending to our niece’s adorable uber-fluffy Pomeranian, Raider, when I abruptly transitioned from vertical to horizontal. It happened fast, but somehow felt slow as I watched the sidewalk close in on my face.

The most distressing thing was the distinct and memorable bounce of the side of my head off the concrete.

“Crap. I’ll have to go to the emergency room for this one.”

My husband spotted me right after my head settled back into place.

“Are you okay? What can I do? Should I call for medical?”

He got the same Minion-like response as the last time. “Bee-do, bee-do!"

“Wee-woo, wee-woo!” The air was knocked out of me again.

However, this time, some safety features were in my favor: we weren’t on home turf in our HOA community, so cars were not hurtling at us at double the speed limit, I was on a sidewalk that had a parking strip and curb and gutter between me and the normally paced traffic of the sane and considerate drivers who exist outside of our HOA.

Things were looking up! And so was I, right into the faces of three curious very-good dogs, who had all managed to sidestep my tumble and keep themselves safe.

“You okay, human?” times three.

Once I caught my breath and my husband caught my hand to help me stand up, we finished taking care of the pups and headed home to get them tucked in for their naps while we visited the ER.

Lucky again, nothing was broken. My ribs were bruised on the opposite side as the previous fall. Scans were done of my head and torso for the “blunt-force trauma” of flesh pounding the sidewalk. No concussion. No brain bleed.

A good day indeed.

Buy me a cuppa

“We see something that you’ll want to follow up on with your primary care physician. Are you a smoker?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been exposed to second-hand smoke?”

Hasn’t everyone? I thought.

“There’s a nodule in your lung that you’ll want to monitor.”

That is the moment I knew these falls were not negative events.

They were gifts.

I knew I should have gone to the ER after the first fall; I just didn’t want to. My immune system is so compromised, even on the best of days, that hanging out in an ER waiting room full of sick people is a scary notion, something to be avoided if possible.

So I had the opportunity of falling again for another chance to get it right, to go where a light could be focused on what was perhaps the real reason for the falls; to let me know I had a nodule that would not have been found otherwise.

“You’ll want your physician to follow-up on the nodules in your thyroid too, especially those in the isthmus.”

Dear God, I’m sorry I didn’t pay attention to your benevolent message

of that first fall. I’ll try to listen better for your loving care.

I was relieved that the two falls happened within a few short weeks of each other. And I hoped that sliver of time hadn’t given some kind of cancer a ticket on a runaway train in my body: a ticket to metastasis-ville.

At the follow-up appointment with my primary care doc, he wasn’t too concerned about any of the nodules except those in the isthmus. He said those were the most likely to be cancerous, but even they had a high chance of being benign.

Tests were ordered, and a referral was sent to an endocrinology clinic.

My husband and I tried to appear and behave mostly unfazed. We tried to keep from spreading our low-level panic to each other.

Refer a friend

We know that we work well as a team when life hands out the hard stuff. We have confidence in ourselves and in our loving, supportive relationship.

We just needed to know the test results and the plan. Waiting for those took far longer than they should have. But the eventual results gave us a big sigh of relief: only a 4% chance of being cancerous, according to genetic testing. Monitor all the nodules for growth. If they reach the size that “meets criteria for biopsy,” we will do that again.

We also received that gift: the reminder to slow down, pay close attention to the opportunities for better self-care, even when they are wrapped in unwanted packages.

Was this debacle, I mean opportunity, finally tied up with a neat little bow?

Ha! No. Life is too life-y for that. Stay tuned for the third and final part of the adventure.

How about YOU? Have you experienced situations in your life when something looked like a problem but revealed the true problem below, like the visible tip of an iceberg versus the massive mountain of ice below the surface?

Sometimes, those icebergs reveal gifts.

I’d love to hear more about your experiences and the hidden gifts that emerged from negative situations.

I’m sure I fell too many times to count as a kid. Those falls are not memorable; in fact, I recall only one. I leapt from a giant dirt pile at school, back when kids were allowed to leap from 15-foot dirt piles to land in 5 feet of soft soil, back when kids could get dirty, even at school.

One leap left me with grit embedded in a knee. I still remember my teacher working the little rocks out one at a time. Though bloody and painful, I survived. And returned to flight off the pile.

Our daily recess escapades left my friends and me with dusty ankles. The dirt pile was the type that dump trucks create by backing up and unloading one truckload after another for fill dirt. We tamped down makeshift stairs into the side of it, and ran as fast as we could to leap off the end to land calf-deep in soft dirt, jump up, run to the steps and do it again.

The goal was to get in as many jumps as possible before the end of recess. It was a blast! No adults complained. Noone erected fences around the dirt pile to keep us out. No major injuries occurred.

Our only instructions were to dust off before returning to the classroom. And if we dragged in a bunch of dirt on our shoes, we were required to clean up after ourselves. Those were important lessons in consideration for others.

Recently, I learned that falls taken as an adult are not as fun, and the price to play is far higher.

On a routine dog walk in our little community, I tripped over my own feet and fell forward with my full body, landing face down on the asphalt. I put out my left hand on the way down to catch myself. That was a mistake, of course. I injured my hand and did not stop the fall or make the landing any less painful.

I learned the visceral definition of having the wind knocked out of me as I lay in the road, wheezing weirdly as I tried to tell my husband I couldn’t talk.

The thought of the wild wheezing now makes me laugh so hard that I nearly had another issue that plagues many women of my certain age and women living with Multiple Sclerosis. LOL.

My dear husband was asking if he should call 911, what he could do to help, what I needed, and if I was okay.

I could not answer him. All I could do was wheeze in a way that sounded like Carl, the Minion. “Bee-do, bee-do, bee-do.” But with “Ws.”

“Whee-woo, whee-woo, whee-woo.”

My hand and knee were scraped and bloody; I wondered if I would need to pick little rocks out of my skin like my teacher had that day in elementary school. But being unable to breathe was the concern. My ribs hurt. I knew only time would make that ease off.

The dogs’ leashes had dropped out of my hands, but my sweet pups were standing next to me, looking down at me with concern. I wanted to tell them what good boys they are.

Suddenly, I pointed frantically; a car was coming fast. I was lying in the road in a shaded place and knew the driver could not see me.

My husband looked up and flagged the driver to slow down. Thank God, the literal Creator, that my husband was with me that day.

Once breath returned to my lungs, I slowly rolled to one side, then the other, figuring out the least painful, most effective way to get on my feet. Getting up was so much easier as a kid.

We finished our brief walk at my insistence. I refused to give up and give in.

Since my diagnosis with Multiple Sclerosis in 2004, I am determined to walk every step that I can. Every step is precious to me. A step that I take today might mean a step I still get to take in the future.

Once home, we assessed the damage: no obvious broken bones, some raw road rash on my hand and knee, sore ribs on the left side, and breathing normally again.

Would I be able to type with that injured hand?

Surgeons insure their hands for huge amounts of money because that is how they make a living and how they fulfill their calling as healers.

What about our healing hands, Writer Friends?

It was my first injury since claiming my identity as a Writer. My hands have become even more valuable to me, not monetarily, but writing is how I find out what I think and how I feel. They are part of how I encourage others.

What would I do without my hands?

I guess I would become thankful for dictation software in a hurry.

That fall did not require a visit to the ER, though it would have been wise. I hadn’t hit my head, and apparently, that is how I determined if an ER visit was needed.

Thankful that I was in decent condition, I got back to living life, though tenderly and with a bit more caution.

The question nagged at me; why had I fallen? And more concerning; why didn’t I step forward to prevent the fall?

Was damage to my neurons, caused by Multiple Sclerosis, interfering with the signals from my brain to my body that would normally cause me to take that step forward to save myself? Was it a sign of declining reflexes? THAT scared me.

I called my neurologist. She saw me right away, evaluated how my body was functioning, didn’t find any significant issues (thank God, again), ordered MRIs, and referred me to a Vestibular Therapist.

My highly qualified neurologist’s genuine care and concern eased my panic. I knew I was going to be okay, no matter what changes might be coming.

I also knew that my husband and I might face another new normal soon. But we are great as a team and have tackled hard things throughout our nearly 30 years together. We knew we would draw even closer together and do our best.

Buy Me a Coffee

We knew we would encourage and uplift each other and include daily laughter to make it all a little easier to handle.

I wish that was the end of the falling saga. It was just the beginning.

The next fall made me incredibly grateful. More on that in my next post, coming soon.