So, there I was, lying on the ground on Christmas Eve, unable to feel my right arm, which lay underneath me, having just broken the fall I’d just finished.
To be fair, there was a moment there when I couldn’t quite feel anything, but that was also a moment where I wasn’t quite sure if I could think straight either, so I’m not sure that really counts. Anyway, it was quickly replaced by a searing pain in my leg, where I’d hit the gate we’d set up to keep the dogs out’ve part of the house and gone flying in a particularly groundward direction. To be equally fair, I was somewhat flying when my leg connected with the gate; I was, in some rushed and clearly unsuccessful manner, trying to jump over the gate when my leg caught it and sent me crashing downwards.
When I say it like that, it sounds pretty pitiful: I tripped and fell. But I know it’s not just me who was surprised by it: Kate came running through, panicked by the noise, and looked at me in a “Oh God, he’s broken something and on Christmas Eve, this is not good” manner. Once I’d realized what had happened - There were a few seconds where I really had no idea why I was lying on the floor at all, and probably would’ve had some trouble explaining what a floor was - and picked myself up, she made me try and lift my arm up to various points, and evidently read my wincing to such a degree that she could tell that I hadn’t, in fact, broken anything, but clearly strained some muscles. I was disappointed by the news (Straining muscles? So why does it hurt so much? Am I that much of a wuss?), but it’s since been explained to me that straining muscles (a) can be more serious than it sounds, and (b) really would explain the fact that, every now and again, I lose strength in my right arm even a couple of days later for no immediately apparent reason.
Nonetheless, it felt, for a couple of minutes, like the disaster that ruined Christmas. And even the next day, as I failed to be able to lift up a laptop without sharp stabbing pains in my right arm, I was convinced that it was some strange omen luckily avoided.
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Content © Graeme McMillan, 2008-2009.
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I once broke my left thumb by falling out of bed. THere’s a longer story there, one involving video games and shame, but basically, back in 2000, around a month before I moved to Spain, I got up off the bed I was playing games on, tripped, fell, and ended up with a fracture in my thumb.
What I’m saying is that sometimes awesome and flawless people just… fall.
And why do we fall, Graeme?