Drove about three hours today--1 1/2 there, 1 1/2 back--to pick up a piece of equipment. I drove a route I used to take quite regularly to play at a church in Orange County. It's been a long time since I took those roads...
Anyway, made it there with no problem. Made it back with no problem. Did a little thinking on the way down, had some interesting ideas. I might have talked about those, but...
After I got home, I rested for a couple of hours, then tried to get the equipment out of the back of the truck.
Tried. Almost failed--spectacularly.
Thank God it didn't break when it hit the ground. (And that I didn't break when I hit the ground.) Much of the reason it didn't was that I controlled its fall. But its fall controlled me, pushing me off my feet, and I hit the ground hard. And was pinned underneath the equipment; not heavy enough to cause damage when it landed on me, but it kept me on the ground.
Didn't take more than a minute and a half to get up, extricating myself from under what had fallen on me. Took about three more minutes to get it back on its wheels and pushed into place in the garage. Physically, at least, neither of us seem the worse for the adventure, although I hit my sacrum hard; I couldn't roll backwards, martial-arts-style, because the equipment had fallen on my legs and had pinned them, and all I could do was try to land softly in a lump. (Which, I must say, I did better than I had imagined might have happened.)
This is only the second fall I've taken since The Diagnosis, but the only one that hurt. And boy, did it. The whole event kinda took away what little wind was in my sails; oh, I had had such wonderful plans of productivity for the afternoon. This is pretty much all I had the energy for.
And just walking around the house isn't doing so well, either. Takes between thirty and sixty seconds after standing to make sure I have enough control to walk; although once I start walking, if I have enough walls, I'm OK.
I'm going to drink a whole lot of water this evening, and take some aspirin, and take it easy. If I'm lucky, I'll be no worse than sore tomorrow.
Could be worse, I guess. Had I been 80, that would have been a broken hip. 'Course, had I been 80, I would have had enough sense not to try to take the damned thing out of the back of the truck by myself.
The changes I'm undergoing, on this M.S. road, I'm still dealing with.
Maybe I'd better start dealing with them better.
I've always said, when life wants to teach you a lesson, it taps you gently on the shoulder. Then roughly. Then it hits you in the back of the head. Best you should learn the lesson it wants to teach you before it escalates to "18-wheeler."
Well, life just tried to teach me a lesson by knocking me to the ground and pinning me under an equipment rack.
Probably, I should listen, huh? Lord knows I don't want to experience the next attempt to get my attention.
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