THE FALLDOWN
Note to Self: Keep Your Face Off the Sidewalk and Your Eyes Open for the Gifts
A few weeks after the surprising meeting my body had with asphalt, resulting in road rash on my hand and knee, bruised ribs and worst of all, bruised confidence, I punched myself in the face with a sidewalk.
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.
“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.
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.
Oh, this life-y thing called life… never a dull moment, is it?
We had one of those moments, thankfully far less dramatic, on a recent road trip back from California. My brother’s 15-year-old minivan chose that exact stretch of road, just as we crossed back into Colorado, to stage what felt like a full-blown farewell tour. Smoke. Awkward gear shifts. The whole “I might be done here” performance.
We pulled over, let the engine cool, and did what modern travelers do - we consulted ChatGPT for a quick gut check. With a little guidance and a hopeful nudge forward, the van limped its way into nearby Fruita, where we were lucky enough to find Stephen at Pickie’s Garage - reputable, kind, and refreshingly efficient.
Less than an hour later, after a fresh infusion of transmission fluid (which, by the way, looks alarmingly like blood - this looked less like auto repair and more like a roadside medical procedure), the dashboard was no longer lit up like Times Square and we were back on the road.
And here’s the thing - had the van chosen a different moment to “give up the ghost,” we might have ended up somewhere far less fortunate, with a far less positive outcome. Instead, we landed exactly where we needed to be, with just enough time to get it fixed before they closed up shop for the weekend. Funny how that works.
So I’m especially glad your situation turned into a positive as well. Maybe your guardian angel nudged things along… or simply stuck her foot out at just the right moment. And I’m very glad the doggies are okay too!
I am glad you didn’t have a brain bleed, Jacque, although an encounter with the asphalt that hard and bruised ribs are painful. And grateful in that mixed way, “oh no! Oh good,” that they noted the incidental finding of the nodules that need to be followed.
I have had that too, after an MRI to monitor the pain coming from remnants of my splattered spleen from an accident many years ago (high school) only to find neoplasms in my pancreatic ducts. Good and not so good. Most often they are benign and don’t develop into pancreatic cancer, but they need to be monitored to detect any change. If I hadn’t been experiencing pain from the splenosis, I wouldn’t have known they were there. So far, no change has been detected four years later. I am grateful. I just had an MRI on Friday so I am waiting on the results. Hopefully that will also show no change.