My Nemesis

The stairs...

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a bit of a clumsy streak.  I blame this on genetics.  Stairs and I have never been the best of friends.  I fall down them, trip up them, and otherwise don't always get along with them.  Why this didn't cross my mind when we were looking at (and purchasing) a house I'm not sure, because things might have gone a little differently had I thought about my never ending conflict with stairs.  But it didn't really cross my mind and we purchased a house with a lot of stairs.  Don't get me wrong, I love our house, and I love our ward and neighbors even more-- I just have a love/hate relationship with stairs... all of them.

About a month ago I was carrying a pack and play down the stairs and took a wrong step, on the second step down.  I took a not so nice bouncy ride down the stairs and found myself bruised and walking funny for a few days.  To be honest, I feel lucky that it took me so long, while living in our house, to take such a tumble down the stairs.  I was also feeling lucky that I wasn't carrying Baby J at the time.

Last Friday (Aug. 15) I had another encounter with the stairs that did not end quite as well.  I was doing something that wasn't so smart.  I was trying to get some things cleaned and organized and in the process I had found several items that needed to go to the basement.  I didn't want to make a whole bunch of trips up and down the stairs so I was stacking stuff on the top step to the basement.  As I did so I leaned over the baby gate at the top of the stairs.  I thought to myself that I shouldn't be leaning over the gate like I was.  Just as that thought left my mind, said baby gate gave way and I went with it, head first, down the stairs.  Baby J and Mr. E were playing contentedly in the family room, so neither of them were in danger of getting hurt or coming along for the ride.  About half-way down I heard a lovely snap and before I knew it I was in a painful heap at the bottom of the stairs.  A quick self assessment told me that my head and neck were both fine and that the snap had come from my right arm.  I sat myself up, let loose a scream or two and gingerly placed my obviously broken right arm on my lap.  I found my phone a few steps up as Mr. E made his way down the debris littered stairs to me.  "Mommy, you fell.  Mommy, are you ok?  Mommy, you're crying..."  Yes, yes, yes...  My possessed phone was refusing to make an outgoing call.  I shut it off, "Mommy, your phone died."  Turned my phone back on and hefted myself to my feet with another scream.  Got to the top of the stairs and on the floor near Baby J, phone finally rebooted.  Try to call Mom, no answer, great.  Dad, no answer, shoot.  Try to call Lawrence at work, call is interrupted by Dad returning my call, possessed phone freaks out, hang up.  Dad calls back, "I fell down the stairs and broke my arm come take me to the ER."  Hang up, call Lawrence.  He feels helpless, tells me to call Sarah.  Call Sarah, she comes right over.  Meanwhile Baby J is upset because I'm upset so I somehow finagled him onto my lap.  Sarah made it over with another neighbor hot on her heels.  Sarah took J and started getting him food, second neighbor got E's swim trunks and took him to Sarah's house where there was a party going on, complete with a water slide.  Then the husbands showed up, and they gave me a blessing.  This helped calm me some.  Finally Mom and Dad showed up.  Mom took me to the ER, dad stayed with the kids.  Then it got boring.

We waited for an X-ray to tell us how bad the break was and if it would need surgery or could just be set.  Then we waited for the orthopedic doctor to come set it.  Some time during the waiting Lawrence got an employee to come in so he could leave work and be with me.  Then Mom got a call asking where my baking soda was, my youngest brother had been stung by a wasp, three times...  Mom left to attend to swelling post stings.  The orthopedist finally came with a team of doctors to put me out while he set my arm.  According to Lawrence I kept telling Mr. E to get off me, that he was hurting me, during the procedure.  They set the bone, splinted my arm and we waited some more, this time for the sleepy drugs to wear off and for the doctor to discharge me.  We didn't get home until 1 am...

On Monday I went back for more X-rays to see if the bone had shifted and to cast my arm.  Fortunately it was a clean break, it set well, and didn't shift, so I didn't need surgery!

Lesson learned, don't lean over baby gates.  I can laugh at it all now, so you can too.