i hurt myself last week.
It was one of those bad luck moments that i’ve rarely had in my generally charmed. i’ve never broken a bone, i’ve never been diagnosed with cancer, and i’ve never had stitches. One of those is no longer true.
i had just finished dropping my daughter off at day care, which is set up in a little house. i usually bring her stroller through the gate to the backyard and cover it up, and then come back out through the gate and walk home. It was on my way down the driveway from the gate that i stepped to cross over to the front walk. There was a mound of ice there.
It was the kind of ice that forms when a pile of snow dwindles and melts until it becomes a shrivelled, compacted stretch of hard lumpy glass. Thanks to a recent thaw, it was also one of the only patches of ice left in the city. i came free-wheeling down the driveway, nearly skipping like a leprechaun and pleased as punch with myself because i loved my daughter, it was a bright sunny day, and i’d lived my whole life cancer free, with intact bones and no stitches. And then, out of nowhere, my legs flew out from under me to my left.
As gravity pulled the rest of me down, i remember thinking “Hey, legs. That’s not the way you ought to go. You see, walking is like controlled falling. i fall forward, and then put a leg out in front to catch myself. Then i repeat the process, thereby achieving locomotion. But this whole business of you swinging out sideways is entirely counterproductive. You see, for one thing …”
And then i hit the ground.
Or rather, my right knee hit the ground.
Or rather, the icy patch.
Or rather, the lousy sonofabitching icy patch.
At this point, gravity and my unfortunate and recent weight gain formed a pact to do their job in tandem. Gravity pulled me to the ground, while my bulk made sure to make it a hard landing. My first reaction was shock. My second reaction was to look across the street to see if anyone had noticed me falling, because that’d be pretty embarrassing. And my third reaction was to say the effword.
Then i got up, gingerly, and said the effword some more. The effword was, in fact, my fourth, fifth and sixth reactions. It also formed the better part of reactions seven through thirty-five, as i shuffled around in a circle, clenching my fists despite the pain, and uttering “EFF eff eff eff EFF eff eff eff” like some profane choo choo train. Like the Little Engine that Could … Offend Your Grandma.
i chugged around my little circle, the words of my non-existent grade ten gym coach running through my mind - “Walk it off, Pidwerbeski. Walk it off.” My name wasn’t Pidwerbeski, and i stopped taking gym in grade nine after it was no longer mandatory. Hmm. Maybe i’d seen that gym coach in a movie?
i sat down on a little bench in front of the day care to survey the damage. How come it hurt so much? Ah, yes. There it was. i had torn my pants wide open at the knee. i hiked my pantleg up a little and looked through the gaping hole. There, in my leg, was another gaping hole. Apparently, i had also torn my knee wide open at the knee.
There was an ugly little flap of skin, growing paler by the second, bunched up below an inch-wide hole in my knee. There was very little blood coming out of the hole, perhaps because of the way the wound was formed. It was deep, but not deep into my knee towards the bone. It was deep down the length of my leg, if you get my drift.
If not, i have buried an extremely graphic image of my wound below the fold. Please continue only if you have an extremely strong stomach or, failing that, a bowl nearby to contain the profuse amount of vomit you’re likely to spew at the mere sight of this.
(Tell me more …)