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FALLING, ALMOST

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MISSTEPPING DOWN THE STAIRS

I sort of fell down the stairs a few months ago. I say sort of because I caught myself before gravity entirely grabbed me.

Garry said “You can’t ‘sort of’ fall down the stairs. You either fall down the stairs or you don’t fall down the stairs.”

“Well, I only fell down half the stairs. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t break anything.”

“What were you doing on the stairs?”

“I was going to get the mail. I started down, but on the second step, my ankle turned. I knew I was going to fall, but I grabbed the railing. So I only fell the first couple of steps. And I did something to my foot,” I finished. Lame. Limping.

foyer and light

I showed him my foot. It was swollen. The toes were sort of purplish. Not aligned in the usual way.

“It’s only my foot,” I pointed out. “It could have been my back. That would have been really bad. This is nothing. Really. Aren’t you glad I was able to grab the railing and keep from falling all the way?”

He looked like a gathering storm and was not smiling. Not even a tiny smirk. “It,” said Garry, “Is not nothing.”

Garry said if it looked bad in the next morning, I would have to see a doctor. Get an x-ray. I pointed out it’s the end of the month and we are out of money. We can’t even afford a copay, much less medication or a pair of crutches.

My feet 15

He said he doesn’t care. I need to see the doctor. I said I don’t think it hurts enough to be serious. He pointed out that I’m a bad judge of what “hurts enough” since I pretty much never think anything hurts enough to go to a doctor.

Do I know how to have fun or what?

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Categories: Anecdote, Daily Prompt, Humor

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29 replies

  1. vastlycurious.com
    03/12/2016 • 19:04

    Im glad you didn’t break your neck! I did the same thing years ago and rolled it so bad it took over a year to stop hurting. Your toes look cute.

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/12/2016 • 19:18

      I’m surprised we don’t fall more often. I’m super careful these days, but when I was younger, I barely looked where I was going. Amazing I didn’t break myself into pieces.

      Thank you. My toes need a pedicure, but I’m waiting for my ship to deliver my treasure 🙂

      Like

  2. swo8
    03/12/2016 • 14:59

    Trouble with some of those falls is you sometimes throw something else out of alignment. Na, I wouldn’t go to the doctor for that either. You’re liable to pick up something more nasty from the doctors office. After all that’s where the sick people go.
    Leslie

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    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/12/2016 • 15:07

      I have no remaining alignment to throw out. I’m glued together by arthritic calcification. As long as I don’t really break anything, I’ll be okay. Pain, yes … but not in danger. A really serious fall could be a bad problem, but this really WAS a very small thing.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. wscottling
    03/12/2016 • 13:47

    You sound like my husband. “It’s nothing.” He has blisters all over the bottom of his feet because he get’s a weird reaction to the carpeting (probably the pet hair) but “It’s nothing.” Won’t go to the doctor, and when he does go to the doctor, he downplays his discomfort so much the doctor dismisses everything as trivial. grrr grrrrr.

    I love my husband, but he doesn’t take care of himself at all. I feel Garry’s pain.

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    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/12/2016 • 15:08

      I do take care of myself, mostly. But I’m tired of doctors and tests. I’ve had so much surgery, so many tests, so much medical attention — good AND bad — that unless I think I absolutely MUST see a doctor, I avoid it. I’ve had enough.

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      • wscottling
        03/12/2016 • 15:13

        I hear ya. I’m the same way with doctors & tests. I can’t breathe most days and I so am not going back to a doctor to be poked and prodded and told, “Yep, you can’t breathe. We don’t know why.” Screw em. However, if you foot is swollen and your toes misaligned that’s a different story.

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        • Marilyn Armstrong
          03/12/2016 • 15:52

          And if they’d stayed that way for another day, I’d have gone for an opinion, but fortunately, I was right and it was a minor thing. If nothing else, I can pretty much tell with reasonable surety if something is serious — or not. Except when it was cancer and a bad heart valve. Didn’t catch those because they had no symptoms.

          Liked by 1 person

  4. khyatiratan
    03/12/2016 • 13:15

    Surly you have gone through a lot in life. So much that you couldn’t measure your own pain. Take care

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    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/12/2016 • 15:10

      I really can’t measure it. I never know what to tell them when they ask “are you in pain” because I’m always in pain. Whether it’s disabling or I can still function is probably the only valid question … and because I live with it and am used to ignoring it as much as I can, I’m not sure what THEY mean by “bad” or “serious.” And anyway, no matter what I say, they’ll dismiss it anyhow.

      Liked by 1 person

      • khyatiratan
        03/12/2016 • 23:41

        They care for you, but of course you know that they will never understand the degree of your pain. There is surly some incident which you couldn’t get over. I am very young, only 30, but don’t know why I could connect to your pain. May be because even I don’t know how to measure my pain. Sometimes you go through an impossible incident but you still live, but the life you get after that has bruise and unlimited pain.

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        • Marilyn Armstrong
          03/13/2016 • 00:16

          I think on the issue of pain, we just have to believe each other. Life hurts. We have accidents playing sports, working, just living. There are plenty of ways to get wounded … and time makes all that stuff hurts.

          Liked by 1 person

  5. loisajay
    03/12/2016 • 13:11

    This so made me laugh–with you not at you, Marilyn!! Such a conversation….and yes, you can sort of fall. You just did it, didn’t you?! I hope everything was OK.

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    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/12/2016 • 15:11

      Yeah, it’s okay. By the next day, it was mostly better. I would have known if I had done serious damage, but I knew I hadn’t. No one believe me when I tell them I do understand my body. Everyone believe in tests, but no one believe people.

      Like

  6. Ben
    03/12/2016 • 13:09

    A guy goes to the doctor and complains “Doc when I do this it hurts”.., the doc says “don’t do that” Marilyn, Please stop falling down stairs, eventually it WILL hurt… 🙂

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  7. angloswiss
    03/12/2016 • 12:53

    🙂 Yes this is a great blog, I think your feet look prettier than mine.Men just don’t get it. If your feet leave your ankles and the ankles decided to desert the legs, then it will happen. I am glad I live on the ground floor and we have a lift to the cellar. I remember when I was working, everyone walked up and down the stairs, after all it was only one level to go with two flights of stairs. My boss said to me (he was a nice guy) “take the lift Pat” and I always did. He knew why.

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    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/12/2016 • 15:13

      I’ve fallen often enough to know exactly what you mean. I also have a funky knee that sometimes just folds up without warning. I am careful. Very careful. But there are a lot of stairs in this life and the odds are, that we will eventually fall.

      My feet look better than they feel! 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      • angloswiss
        03/12/2016 • 16:31

        I think those funky knees are something we bring into the world with us. I also have one. I can take a walk and suddenly knee sort of bends, gives way and says stop, otherwise I will not support you. It is an unexpected, frightening feeling.

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        • Marilyn Armstrong
          03/12/2016 • 17:07

          I tore the anterior crucis ligament in my left knee more than 30 years ago. Fixing it was (at that time) a really big deal and didn’t seem worth the pain and very long recovery time, not to mention the not-always-successful results, so the knee is unstable. It’s been that way so long I don’t think about it much, but sometimes, it just buckles. It doesn’t even hurt. Just kind of disappears and down I go.

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  8. cordeliasmom2012
    03/12/2016 • 12:44

    So, did you go to the doctor? Was anything broken? When I fell off the edge of the sidewalk, I broke a metatarsal bone. I still managed to go out to dinner before going to the ER, thinking it was just a bad sprain, but it was, in fact, broken.

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  9. Garry Armstrong
    03/12/2016 • 12:43

    Yep!! You’re a bundle of fun!! Love you!!

    Liked by 1 person