Falling

What a winter it's been. There must be thousands of ways to fall and this past winter I've personally found a lot of them.

A light coating of snow that doesn't slow you down. You stride out, trying to make time and who knew? Under that light coating of snow on the corner, there's a large patch of solid ice! Down you go.

A cold day, no new snow, but black ice making it quite difficult to detect. As you walk as quickly as you can, the instant you hit the black ice, you're down. You didn't even know you were going down.

Then there are the completely snowy days. You're walking along and a variation in the terrain under the snow is not detectable. All of a sudden you roll your ankle and down you go.

As you descend some steps, you realize they're slippery and you get a firm grip on the railing. It doesn't matter how firm your grip is, once you're foot meets that ice, you're down.

You make a delivery, turn to cut across a lawn as required, there's a little slope and it's slippery. You didn't know it until your head impacted the brick planter.

You wear boots and cleats when appropriate. You try to slow down to be safe. You watch as closely as possible every change and variation in the terrain. It doesn't matter. If you walk all day in all kinds of weather. You're going to fall.

This year I made it through the winter with only lots of falls. BUT none serious enough to impact my work. Just falls that feel insulting and hurt my feelings along with various parts of my body.

And finally we get to April. Home free. A light layer of snow in the morning is rapidly melting. Although it's wet out, it doesn't seem particularly hazardous. Then a gentle five foot slope to a mailbox is not made up of just grass as it seems, but a mixture of mud and grass. My left foot slid about 2 1/2 feet and my right foot didn't. My right knee bent under me and I must have ended up sitting on my poor twisted, right foot. WOW! That hurt!

I walk to my truck after making two more stops, change pants (mine are soaking wet and muddy), and continue rather tenuously on my route. I called to notify my Supervisor that I had fallen and hurt my right ankle and foot but that I would keep on going. Just not as fast.

I walked the rest of the day. It hurt but I kept going because it's just pain. I can work in pain.

I couldn't wait to get home that day and put my foot up. A half hour after I did, it swelled unbelievably and the pain was really bad.

The next day I went to an occupational health facility where they diagnosed a sprain and put me on light duty. Two days later, the doctor noted that the radiologist thought he saw a small fracture in my foot. Now I'm on really light duty and crutches. What a pain.