Confessions of a Reluctant Hypochondriac.

Last week, after I slipped on the ice and landed on my back, I made light of my injuries but in reality I was scared shitless.  I remember one foot slipping out from under me and thinking "Crap, there goes my other knee!" because just days earlier I slipped on another patch of ice by the ponds and came down hard on my right knee.  But this time, even as I tried to regain my balance I could feel my other foot slipping as well.  Swoosh!  Nothing but air!  I don't know what hit first, my butt, my hands or my head.  I closed my eyes as if by doing so I could soften the landing.  It did not work.

I didn't feel pain so much as I felt the force... a powerful energy that sucked the air out of my lungs... and I remember hearing a strange sound, like something solid hitting the concrete.  That would be my head.  My body instantly tensed into a ball although in reality I was sprawled out on the ground, face up.  The dog began jumping on me.

Lassie would have gotten the neighbors to help me.  Jubilee just wanted to play.  Stupid dog!

I rolled over to protect my skull from further pounding as the bassett hound bounced on me.  I opened my eyes, half expecting to see blood and brains spilled out on the ice but the ground was bare except for a dusting of snow over the ice.  I laid on my belly, feeling the ice melt below me, for what seemed like ages.  I wished Jubilee would get Lassie, who I knew would get me help.  I just knew I was going to die out there on the ice.

I didn't feel real pain until I tried to stand up.  It felt like talons were digging into my lower spine and pulling me down.  I knew that pain, I had felt it before after an accident at the ice skating rink when I was a teenager.

I had busted my butt... again.

The bump on my head was immediate, and it was alarming.  It filled my cupped hand.  The part of my brain that was not still in shock from the blow was horrified yet amazed by the size of the bump, which was steadily growing.  In automation I went around to the car, picked up Art's Pink Haired Girlfriend, drove her to school and drove back home. By then the goose egg had developed into an ostrich egg and I was concerned.

So I googled 'concussion', certain that was what I was suffering from.  For the rest of the day I barely moved, getting up only to use the bathroom and examine my pupils.  I listened for ringing in my ears.  Was I nauseous or just hungry?  Were those stars floating across my vision or just dust in the air?  Was I going into shock or having a seizure or was it just cold?  I had taken 3 asprin before my slip... was I now bleeding out in my brain?

In all seriousness I did, at one point, entertain the idea that I could be dying.  I had no 'near death' or out of body experience.  I didn't see the 'light' and my life didn't flash before my eyes but in a moment of clarity I acknowledged the fact that I could actually be living my last moments of life on this earth.

A check list went through my still rattled mind... did everyone who needed to know that I loved them actually know without a doubt that I loved them?  Check.  Were my bills up to date?  Kind of check, nothing that my current paycheck couldn't handle.  Life insurance?  Check.  Will?  Check.  Clean underwear?  Check.

What snapped me out of it was the realization that I had a ton of dirty laundry in my room.  I couldn't die and leave someone else to sort through my dirty laundry.  I had a bunch of raunchy socks and some not so clean undies that I could never RIP knowing that someone else had to touch them.

So while my butt still hurts and my head looks like a deformed conehead, I am alive.  And I won't be dying any time soon, because I still haven't gotten to that pile of laundry in my room.