My Fall From Grace

In this case, grace refers to my ability to walk upright on two feet. But, before I give you the impression that I was clumsy, that wasn’t the case. And I put the blame squarely on the sergeant.

I had to stay late at work Monday evening because the sergeant wanted to have a squad meeting. I’m the program secretary, so I had to stay to take notes. Not a problem, I’ve stayed late countless times and it generally is not a problem.

I will state for the record that had the meeting started on time, My Fall From Grace would not have happened. But, on the other hand, had the meeting started on time, I would have been looking for the Second Coming. I believe that a meeting starting on time is one of the signs.

Since the meeting hadn’t started, I decided to do a bit of housecleaning in my office. I took the trash can and set it outside my door as I always do. As I set it down, a piece of paper fell out. I bent over to pick it up and that’s when the whole thing started.

I started to lose my balance and put my left hand out to steady myself on the lockers that were against the wall. Except they weren’t. Didn’t think I put that much pressure on them, but enough that they started to tip over. As it happened, they stood, oh, I’d guess about an inch and a half away from the wall and didn’t have any support at all. Now, I knew this, but of course, my thoughts were otherwise occupied. With trying to keep the lockers from tipping over and trying to get my feet back under me. Because of course, I was tipping over myself.

I decided to let the lockers fend for themselves and try to keep from falling on my face. I was hoping to keep upright long enough to get to the far wall where I could catch myself. No such luck. My upper body was finally far enough ahead that my feet couldn’t catch up at all and down I went. On my nose. Literally on my nose. As I was going down, I realized I was in perfect position to do a push up. Legs straight back, hands on either side of my shoulders and headed toward the floor.

My nose met the floor. Ouch! That hurt. One of the deputies ran out of the sergeant’s office where he was waiting for the meeting to start and asked if I was all right. Of course, my first reaction was to say, “yes, I’m fine.” Then I noticed the blood gushing out of my nose. “Well, except for the bloody nose, that is.” I’m still not sure just how I got up off the ground, but I did quite quickly and ran into the ladies room where I stood over the sink and let the blood flow. I was wondering whether I had broken my nose and wiggled it a bit. It still hurt, but I figured it was intact.

So, I’m standing there, head back, holding my nose, when the sergeant came in, asking if I was all right (he had been out of the office while I was performing my routine). I thought I had the bloody nose under control, but found I was wrong about that as I turned to answer him. I let loose of my nose, and of course it started bleeding again.

I finally got the bleeding under control, and trooper that I am, went and took notes at the meeting. The sergeant asked if I wanted to fill out a “first report of injury”, but I chose not to. I didn’t think I was seriously hurt (I wasn’t) and, to be quite frank, I didn’t want to go to the ER and pee in a cup. Nothing would be found, I hadn’t taken so much as an aspirin for weeks, so that wasn’t the problem. I knew I would be hours in the ER, have x-rays taken, and nothing that could be done except maybe a band-aid across the nose.

My nose is still tender and still just a little bit swollen. I remember that every time the dog bumps against it when he’s loving on me. I had a bit of bruising in the inner corner of my left eye. I had a few sore muscles for a couple of days and I must have twisted my left wrist because it’s still sore.

But the bottom line is that I survived and lived to tell the tale. And even better, can laugh about it. It must have been funny to see.