I Nearly Died

I haven’t blogged in two weeks but I have an excuse and I promise, it’s a good one!

I fell. Like 8 feet. Ok, it felt like 8 feet. I nearly died had to be rushed to the ER, at 1am on Thanksgiving Day!
Here is the scene of the accident:

See that top step?

Not quite 8 feet from the concrete but it was still far enough away from mother earth to cause me to nearly die significant injury.

Let me explain how I ended up nearly dying crashing to the concrete.
Three days before Thanksgiving my oven went kaput on me.
My landlord’s property management finally sent over a “repairman” to fix it on the day before Thanksgiving.
He was supposed to show up around 11am but didn’t make it until much later in the afternoon.
The repairman finished very quickly and left, just as quickly. I realized that he hadn’t actually TRIED the oven, just replaced a part but at that time, my son had an appointment so I had to skedaddle and didn’t even try it myself.
I still can’t believe he didn’t test the oven before leaving….what kind of repairman doesn’t test their repair??
Late that evening, as I begin to preheat my oven, I noticed the same fault code. <insert frustrated sigh here>

I wasn’t on the hook for Thanksgiving dinner as we were planning to go to my BFF’s house in Maryland but she demanded requested certain baked goodies and I was hell bent on providing those for her. I love my BFF and she rarely asks for anything tangible from me so I had to find a way.

*CLICK* (In my head that sounded like a light bulb going on but to you it probably reads nothing like that)

We have a monstrous travel trailer, sitting in the driveway, not being used…with a brand new OVEN inside! <cue heavenly orchestral music>. I sent the boyfriend out for propane, forgetting I have his debit card in my back pocket so a quick trip to get the propane turns into a double trip and it’s already late. He finally returns with the tank and we are ready to go!

My house oven is smaller than a regular sized oven but the travel trailer oven is even smaller so I know I’ll be up late into the night, baking in small batches but dammit, the BFF is gonna get her goodies! I’m determined!
I bake one loaf of banana bread. Hmm…a little burnt toasted on the bottom, but edible. The oven has a learning curve, as any new oven does, but I’m ecstatic as I scrape the bottom off that first loaf. I bake a second loaf, adjusting the time. A little less…toasty. Moving on, I start to bake cookies – 6 cookies at a time. Ugh. After carrying one tray into the house, I realize it will be a lot more convenient to just sit in the trailer until all the baking is done. I sat out there in the driveway until I was done with 4 trays of cookies and a tray of caramel turtle pretzels. Mission accomplished! Yay! It was late, well after midnight. Not wanting to wake anyone and not wanting to make several trips back and forth, I carefully stacked up the trays, the baking paraphernalia and the goodies. Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea. I’m sure you are seeing now where this is going!

As I step out of the trailer, I really can’t see the steps. Damn. It’s dark and my arms are fully loaded. I step one more time <cover your eyes here, if you’re squeamish> and plunge to my near death into the darkness. My life flashes before my eyes, cookie sheets crash loudly to the ground, cookies and caramel candies sail through the air and as my body makes contact with cement, I hear “THUD/CRUNCH/RIP”, all at once. I smash into the concrete pavement with my left shoulder, the only shoulder I have left that’s never had surgery. Damn. Then my head smacks the ground. Twice, just for good measure. Double damn.

The boyfriend heard the commotion, rushed outside and helped me up. I couldn’t move my arm at all and shortly after, I began throwing up until there was nothing but dry heaves left. He woke the kids, bundled us all into the truck and got me to the ER. They did a head and neck CT and x-rays and shockingly, even though I nearly died I took a hard hit, nothing was broken. Good news! The bad news? I’ve separated my AC joint and possibly torn my rotator cuff so I’ve got some physical therapy ahead of me. I’m ok with that. I’ll do nearly anything to avoid another rotator cuff surgery!

It’s been a week since the accident and the pain has lessened considerably. The function and mobility has also improved. Hopefully, I can upload the photos of my pre-injury projects soon. I also hope to start some new projects as soon as my shoulder can handle it. Did you notice those beautiful pallets under the trailer, in the photo, above?

I can’t wait to start that project but with my injury and the changing weather, it may be awhile.

I did work on one small paper project last night. I’ll try to get pictures and post about it tomorrow.

So…how was your Thanksgiving?? It had to be better than mine! I nearly died.