Now that I’m fairly sure that I haven’t irreparably damaged my intellects, I’m sharing a dissection of how I came by the black eye I’ve sported in the last two posts. The story begins the evening of December 30th, when Michael shot his deer a few minutes before sunset.

The snow: knee deep, beautiful, and exhausting to wade through.

He asked for help retrieving his doe and I answered the call. Three hours later we had her safe in the dooryard. We ate muffins and fell asleep in a heap.

New Year’s Eve came dressed in frost. I walked Zeke and didn’t do much else, still exhausted from the deer rescue mission.

I start this story with these two days to emphasize how tired we both were heading into the new year. I believe we celebrated the end of 2020 and were tucked in by 7 PM.

Remember these behemoths? Michael’s New Years resolution was to cook one every week and feed it to the ducks if not also us. Plenty to share! He took out a 35 lb squash and left it in the middle of the kitchen floor to bake on New Year’s Day.

Of the squash he chose, only one half fit on this tray.

Michael, being tired, didn’t get around to baking the squash in the morning as planned, so he left it in the middle of the floor to remind him to bake it later on. Irene danced around the squash when she made her breakfast. I danced around it most of the day. Cue menacing music.

See these two wonderful aluminum pans? We use them for many things. Around 3 pm on New Year’s Day I decided to use the one without the bail to soak Irene’s feet. I am the designated pedicurist of the family. I was looking for an easy job. I would h… — See these two wonderful aluminum pans? We use them for many things. Around 3 pm on New Year’s Day I decided to use the one without the bail to soak Irene’s feet. I am the designated pedicurist of the family. I was looking for an easy job. I would have used the one with the bail if I could reach it, but Michael had put it up in his tall-guy fashion for the holidays.

This is where circumstances created the perfect storm. I filled the pan with warm water in the kitchen sink with about 3 gallons of water and some Epsom salts. I held the pan in front of me (it now weighing about 25 lbs) and started walking towards Irene’s apartment. The next thing I knew I was on the floor, water everywhere, and sounds reminiscent of any movie battle scene coming from somewhere…oh, that was me. It took me a bit to realize I had tripped over the squash. It felt like a brick wall. A short one.
Irene couldn’t hear me because of distance, two doorways, and a television. Michael couldn’t hear me because he was out cleaning the duck coop. I felt my head. No blood. First good thing. I tried to stand. First bad thing.
It took me a minute or two to figure out I could crawl away from the water, roll on my side, and get my phone out of my back pocket. I texted Michael “Help. I fell.” No answer. I texted Irene “Beer not doing toes. I fell.” They both arrived about the same time.

I hit the edge of the pantry with the pan, then the right side of my head, then my right shoulder.

My head ended up with a big lump. More than two weeks later I still have a small lump there.

My eye and shoulder got bruised; the entire right side was swollen.

I did not go to the doctor. My vision didn’t get blurry, my speech didn’t become slurred, my balance was not compromised. If I had gone to the doctor, she would have ordered an X-ray/MRI, and then told me it was too early to say whether I had a subdural hematoma and to watch for blurry vision, slurred speech, or dizziness. Those are symptoms of bleeding inside the skull, which can be fatal. I know this because I took Irene to the ER when she fell and hit her head and temporarily lost consciousness. My dad did have a subdural hematoma, for which he was hospitalized, after a bad fall. Two of my uncles died from subdural hematomas. Head injuries are nothing to ignore.
I still rely on ice packs on various parts of my body (head, shoulder, lower back) and take ibuprofen regularly to reduce swelling. I have begun exercising again, both to increase blood circulation (that’s what takes away the bruising) and combat inflammation in my joints (due to disuse…the bane of those with arthritis). I credit prior years of resistance training for not having any broken bones. Irene is still gloating that I was the one who fell this time.
Michael initially was angry that I was stupid enough not to use the pail with a bail, to call him when I couldn’t reach the pail with the bail, to fill the pan in the bathroom closer to Irene’s apartment, or to not remember that there was a huge squash sitting in the middle of the floor. Anger is his defensive mechanism against the fear that comes when I get hurt. Thankfully, just that morning there had been an article in our morning news about how the brain takes shortcuts, remembering usual patterns in speech, spaces, and other common things, in order to allow us to move through this world more efficiently. Having my visual path blocked by the pan meant that, to my brain, the squash disappeared. Unfortunately, my feet still found it. Because a science article confirmed that my brain was working as designed, Michael could accept that, perhaps, it is bad policy to leave things in the middle of the floor where they may create a trip hazard. He has been much better about moving things off to the side of walkways ever since.
This is not to say that we were not all complicit in creating the circumstances that resulted in my injurious event. We were all tired. I could have moved the squash myself any number of times that day. None of us were thinking well. This is when bad things usually happen.
The moral of this story is to take it really easy when you are super tired. If you can’t take it easy, take it as easy as you can. If you still get injured, pay attention to your body and look up symptoms and first aid measures. Keep fit and keep walkways as clear of giant squash as possible.