Bella Broken

Bella fall down go boom! I took the hardest fall of my life this morning. I was not ten feet from the end of my run when my left foot sunk deep into a narrow hole in the asphalt. My foot stayed wedged in the hole while my right knee, hip and hand took the full force of my fall. There was no rolling or catching myself. I hit the pavement full force. I lay there moaning thinking this is it. I am done. My wrist and hip are broken. I will need some sort of knee surgery that won't work, and I will grow ever more frail and decrepit as the years of inactivity pass.

I lay there unable to move, but eventually you either have to get up or call for help, so I rolled over and carefully sat up -- I was still alive. I hobbled to my feet, took a few steps, and unbelievably my knee didn't give out underneath my massive tonnage. Honestly, I couldn't believe I was walking.

I limped to my car -- fortunately I could still press the breakpedal down -- went home and filled four Ziploc bags with crushed ice -- it's not just for Margaritas! I lay on the couch like a people-pop: one homemade icepack for my green left foot, one for my purple right knee, one for my scraped hip, and one for my aching and bloody wrist. Delightful.

It looks like nothing is broken, which is great. But falling hard, feeling myself to be totally out of control with no way to break the fall except with my body, well, it really rattled me. At my age it's not just a fall: there's the recovery time, the fact that I could be plagued by the injuries for the rest of my short life -- never really fully recovering -- and that at my age getting back into shape is a herculean task, one I don't know if I'd be up for.

I remember something my dad told me about aging. He said he felt he was always marching up hill until he got his dentures, afterwards, he said, it was all down hill to the grave. I got a little taste of that this morning as I lay splayed out on the blacktop. And I still can't shake it.