It's the term we use whenever we are talking about the tumble I took down the stairs the other day. A tumble I took, by the way, while I was carrying London to her room.
I'm a person who is used to clutter. It's just how I've always been. I have always been pretty good at knowing where to step to get around the vacuum cord, even when I'm carrying something I can't see over. I just don't trip on things, or step on things, even when the house is full of landmines in the form of left shoes, board books, remote controls, and every freaking Fisher Price toy in the universe.
But about a week ago, I succumbed to the efforts of my youngest child trying to cause me great bodily harm. Think Stewie from Family Guy.
London had been sick that day, and since I had to keep bathing her after she puked, I just took her upstairs for the day so we were close to the bathroom and I could get some things done around the house and still have her close to me. Husband and K were at scouts and it was just me, London, and the littlest person of the family, Jack. He's one, and he's such a putterbutt. He just goes all over the house, upstairs and down, finding things and moving things and generally just being adorable.
Husband and Kannon get home and husband sees a Lego train car on the stairs. He moves it back to it's proper place in the Lego basket and comes upstairs where we talk about our days. About ten minutes go by and I decide that it's time to take London back to her room for bed.
I picked her up like I always do, which is like cradling a baby with her legs draped over my right forearm and my left forearm under her neck. She tall these days. She's nine years old, after all.
Our home is a split-entry house (brilliant, right?) and I made it down the first set of stairs without incident. I got the the landing safely. I didn't even know what awaited me.
I took one step down the next set of stairs and things were fine. No hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It wasn't until I moved to put my right foot down onto the second stair that I felt it. A Lego train car. It took my heel right out from under me and even as I was barely registering that I was going down, I was screaming. I knew this was going to be ugly-- falling forward down the stairs while carrying my 48lb daughter who has no way to catch her own fall.
My left shin hit the edge of the stairs and I felt like it cracked. My right knee somehow hit something and hurt just as bad as my left tibia.
It was one of those experiences that happens so quickly, and yet WHILE it's happening, it seems to go on forever. You simultaneously have complete thoughts about it all and yet you can't even think fast enough to consciously react.
We ended up on the floor, me wailing (mostly out of horror of what just transpired, and a bit out of pain from the fall), and London still in my arms. She was still and quiet. I thought she was dead. Thomas rushed down the stairs and Kannon came out of the bathroom right at the bottom of the stairs; right where I lay bawling on the hard floor. Thomas grabs London and puts her on her bed. Kannon is fighting back tears and is scared to death over what is happening. I'm finally able to ask how London is after a few moments and Thomas tells me she's totally fine and that he didn't even think she hit the floor.
Eventually I scoot back up the stairs on my butt and manage to get to my bed. My left leg is already swollen below the knee and my right knee feels like fire. My elbows and arms are fine so I'm not sure how I caught myself or managed to keep London from hitting the floor.
After a little while, we decided I better go to the ER to just have things checked out. My inlaws came up to sit with the kid and off we went.
They took x-rays of my hips, my lower left leg, and my right knee.
The doctor came in after about 30 minutes and told me nothing was broken. Sweet. He asked if I wanted pain meds and I said I'd probably be fine with a muscle relaxer (my neck and lower back were really starting to hurt by this time) and tylenol.
Then he showed us a spot on the x-ray that he wanted to make me aware of. There was a spot below and behind my right knee where the bone was more white in the films. He said something about how he and the radiologist agreed that it WASN'T cancer, but that if I ever start getting pain in that area, to have it checked out because that's what bone cancer looked like. Or what this spot could turn into... or something like that. I was still kind of wigged out that the word cancer was being brought up when I only came in to make sure my shin wasn't cracked.
It was so dumb it was funny.
And guess what was at the bottom of the stairs tonight when I went to tuck London in... Yep, a damn Lego train car.
Oh my gosh. I hope you got a second opinion on your x-ray. I didn't know you still had your blog up and going. Just came across it. Are you still trying to raise funds for a house? If so how is it going?
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