Pride and the fall

I have so many topics I’d love to write about now, but I have to get this off my chest.  Not for sympathy but so you can share in the joy!

First off, I have a footbrace.
It’s made of carbon fiber.  It’s pretty sweet, but when I wear it, I find it hard to keep my balance or go up and down stairs or hills or anything.  Not great.  But on flat surfaces, I actually walk faster with the brace than without.  It mitigates the toe drop I have.  It’s not super comfortable to wear though all the time.  I also have a cane, also carbon fiber.  I use this when I am walking longer distances and not wearing my brace, but usually it’s folded up in my backpack unless I need to use it.

You see where this is going, right?

I got off the train at Manassas Park like I always do, a little past the stairway that I park by.  I was walking slowly, since I was parked in a weird spot and wouldn’t be able to rush out like we crazy train people do.  I carry my backpack over my right shoulder, holding it with my right hand (since my left isn’t that strong anymore.) Anyway, a  combination of a slightly raise concrete joint and a slight dragging toe cause my left foot to catch, and went down.  I couldn’t catch myself, just rolled to the right and took the landing on my shoulder, forearm, knee… and face.  Knocked the wind out of me and I was exhaling for a good 30 seconds or more.  Some very nice commuters stopped to help me (You can trust a guy with a “God’s Army, US Army” hat!) and the VRE was actually delayed in leaving because the conductor stopped to disinfect my face.  EMTs arrived, took me to the ER where I was examined and CT scanned and I’m ok.

Now, that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the humor in all this.  Because I’m STILL laughing!!)

Yesterday I wasn’t wearing my brace, nor was I using my cane, and I was FINE all day.  Slow walking, sure, but I got where I needed to go, safely.  The day was going pretty good,  and by golly Mel was making breakfast burritos at home for dinner.

What a great way to end the day!  I was looking good, had my new khakis on, had my casual brown shoes on (because apparently I’m still vain to dress up for work.)  I wasn’t wearing my brace OR using my cane and… “Down goes Frazier!  Down goes Frazier!”

Let’s think about this – vanity, ego, and Ker-whack!

As I lay there on the sidewalk, exhaling deeply, sounding like this (you need to watch the whole thing with sound), all I could think of was “Oh crap those train commuters are going to kill me for delaying the train!”  If you’ve ever seen train commuters, you know what I’m talking about.  If you haven’t, we are a bunch of people that are on a schedule!  (editors note: I changed this because I wasn’t very nice to train commuters, and I’m just as guilty.)  Luckily, God’s Army was there and the EMTs arrived soon after.  I imagine everyone on the train were those newscasters at the end there, “Oh dear.  Oh, he looks like he got hurt.  We’ll have to see if he’s ok….”

One of the EMTs sounded like my cousin Paul.  I swear he’s from Texas originally but nope, he’s from PA and just has embraced the area!  And on the whole way to the ER, he’s checking me for concussions and asking me to explain ALS to him, how it works, whats going on, etc.  Let me just shout out to Manassas Park Fire department and I highly recommend them for your emergency needs.  He also joked about my three phones.  If you can joke around, then you are a good dude in my book!

At hospital, I had a great NP named Cory help out.  Again, highly recommended.  And… I had a lot of time to laugh about the whole situation.  The grape lady was totally me.  Mel and I laughed and laughed laughed…. And then Megamind, “Oh, my giant blue head!”.  And then of course, I didn’t get breakfast burritos (till this morning) because Mel came to help me.  By then though, I wanted Popeyes…. I still do!

So, let’s recap.  Because I didn’t want to wear my brace and sneakers, or use my cane, I fell, went to ER, broke my glasses, sprained my pride……. yeah, what goes/walks before the fall?

I’m ok though.  As my grandma would say, “I pray to be humble” and God grants us these graces!

So shout out to family that watched the kids and listened to my humor, to the ER, the EMTs, the VRE conductor.

Don’t be too proud to wear the leg brace, yo.