So here’s how it happened: Yesterday, I was vacuuming the narrow spiral staircase that leads to our loft, which is as tricky as it sounds. At the bottom, relieved I had made it down, I stooped to wrap up the cord. As I stood, someone suddenly hit me in the head with the pointy part of a pickax. At least that’s what it felt like. In reality, one of the metal-framed steps had secretly lowered itself behind my back, causing me to slam my head into its corner.
I stood stunned for a split second and then I was lying on the floor, looking at the ceiling and trying to decide if this injury required tears. The pain decided for me and, once I unleash, there’s really no stopping me.
I lay there bawling as My Trusty Sidedog Lucy and our German Shepard Neeko frantically circled me, thinking (I’m guessing): “How can we help? Who should we call? Please don’t die on us! The big one doesn’t let us have treats.” Although as it turns out, Lucy was thinking, “Mom’s on the floor. That means she wants me to put my tongue in her ear,” and Neeko apparently thought licking my toes might revive me.
Sweetums was at the store (see, that’s a sign I was really in pain. I was crying when there was no one there to witness it) and I slowly calmed to the hiccup-sob that comes after a good cry. I wondered if I should tell Sweetums that happened. See, Sweetums has the idea I am accident prone. I don’t know where he gets such ideas.
It may have started on Mother’s Day 2014 when I decided to go bike riding with Sweetums. But my borrowed bike was old and much too big for me to ride comfortably. As I brought it up to the garage, I somehow forgot the bike actually had brakes and went all Fred Flinstone and put my feet down to stop it. The bike toppled over, taking me with it, and I felt the shock of pain. I looked down to find a rusty piece of metal rebar had lodged itself just below the knee cap, leaving a quarter-sized puncture wound.
I kept telling Sweetums I could still make it to the movie we planned to see that afternoon as he was handing me a shot of bourbon and assessing the wound (he has emergency medical training so I was OK with that). He determined it ws quite deep and I needed stitches so we headed to urgent care instead of the theater. Eight stitches and a bottle of pain meds later, we returned home and I hobbled around for the next week.
Since then Sweetums has taken me to the doctor or ER for: falling down stairs (twice, but only once crunching my toes beneath my body), falling off the back deck once (no, I wasn’t drunk. I was out with the dogs at 4 a.m. and it was dark), and overdosing on cold meds while in a feverish stupor.
So I really didn’t want to give Sweetums more ammo. I weighed my options while cradling my head and its egg-sized bump on a pile of pillows: Pampering … being made fun of? Being spoiled … getting laughed at later?
I decided on the pampering. When Sweetums arrived home I was dressed in a black nightie and propped on about eight pillows looking for all the world like Scarlett O’Hara just after she realized she was going to actually have to do some work on the farm. He gave me sympathy with zero sarcasm (which I’m sure wasn’t easy), gently felt the wound and pronounced I wouldn’t die, then brought me an ice pack and tucked me in.
By the time I woke from a nap, my head hardly hurt at all. But don’t tell Sweetums. I figure I can get two more days of pampering if I work it. Shhhhh…
KellyKazek.com 