Diaries I Read:
You know that lesson I gave about how (not) to decorate your house for Christmas? Just ignore it. Make it as tacky as you want. Litter your yard with little Yuletide figurines. Wrap a little Santa in swaddling clothes and lay him in the manger if it floats your boat. Put flashing neon signs in every window.
Just don�t fall off the ladder while you�re hanging your Christmas lights.
Yes, B fell off the ladder yesterday. Or, to be more precise, the ladder slid out from under him and he rode it down to the concrete below, basically landing on his hands and knees in the driveway.
I knew he was planning on hanging more lights, and as I was cleaning up the kitchen I even commented that he needed me to help him, but he said he was fine and headed outside.
A few minutes later, I heard a crash.
I ran out the garage door and there he was, just sitting in the middle of the driveway looking out into the street.
Me: �Did you fall?!�
Him: �Yup.�
Me: �Are you OK?!�
Him: �Yeah. I think so.�
He just sat there, sort of looking at his hands, which were cut up and bleeding, and then looking around him.
Me: �Did you hit your head?�
Him: �No.�
Me: �Did you hurt your back? Your neck?�
Him: �No. I don�t think so.�
Me: �Well, are you OK? Are you hurt?�
Him: �I just fell hard.�
We look up at the house. There are two chunks gouged out of the stucco and stripes scraped down the wall.
Him: �Damn. Look what I did to the house.�
Me: �I don�t care about the house. Can you get up?�
Him: �Yeah. Can you help me?�
He lifts up his arms for me to help him stand up, and I try to pull his dead weight up onto his feet. He lifts up a little, then sinks back down to the ground.�
Me: �Are you sure you�re OK? I think we should go to the hospital.�
Him: �I�m fine. I just sorta feel like I might faint.�
Me: �That�s why we should go to the hospital. Are you sure you didn�t hit your head?�
Him: �Yes, I�m fine. Help me up.�
I help him up and we go inside. He sits down on a kitchen chair.
I want to examine him.
Me: �What did you fall on? Your knees?�
Him: �Yeah, my hands and my knees.�
He begins examining his elbow.
Me: �Did you hurt your arm?�
Him: �Yeah, I banged it a little.�
Me: �But you don�t think anything�s broken?�
Him: �No. I just fell hard. I just feel dizzy.�
Me: �Why don�t you go lie down on the couch? Do you want some water? Are you sure we shouldn�t go to the emergency room? I think we should go see a doctor.�
He just shakes his head, breathes hard, looks at the cuts on his hands.
Man, I was scared. I didn�t know what to do. One of our neighbors is a nurse, so I thought I�d go get her and have her look at him. She wasn�t there. I didn�t know what else to do, so I went and got some cotton balls, hydrogen peroxide, and band-aids. It seemed silly, what with him having just FALLEN FROM THE ROOF, but I had to do something.
So I cleaned up his hands. I put band-aids on his cuts, which may have been from the smashed-up Christmas lights on our driveway. He took off his sweatshirt and jeans. He had a nasty gash on his shin with something gray showing in the middle (I don�t even want to think about what that was), and I cleaned it up and put a bandage on it. I looked at his elbow, which looked red but not too swollen. Same with his knees. I believed he hadn�t hit his head because not a hair was out of place despite all that had just happened.
He drank a glass of water. He said he was still feeling light-headed. I finally got him to lie down on the couch. I put a blanket on him. I still felt so helpless. I really didn�t know what to do.
I looked outside and saw a car in the driveway of our nurse-neighbor�s house. I went over there and talked to her husband. I pointed across the street to the stripes scraped off our house to show where he�d fallen from. He said his wife would be back in a few minutes and she�d come over.
I went home and he was watching TV. He still didn�t look good. I said the neighbor was coming over. He groaned. I got him some shorts to put on.
She came over and looked at him. She seemed satisfied that he was OK as long as he hadn�t hit his head, or landed on his torso, or hurt his back or neck. She said he was probably in a little bit of shock, and he probably felt light-headed and nauseous simply because of the pain. She said not to worry unless he still wasn�t feeling well in an hour.
***
So, he�s OK. He got up after a little while and everything was still in one piece. We even went out to Home Depot later on to get some extension cords and timers for the Christmas lights. We put some lights in the trees. We DID NOT put any more on the house. I don�t care how pathetic our little strip of lights looks.
This morning, his knees and his shin are pretty bruised up. He says his shin hurts the worst. He�s already talking about needing to repair the stucco on the house.
I can�t tell you how much I don�t care about the stupid stucco.
Working at home - Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004
Toronto - Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004
On the way to Toronto... - Tuesday, Nov. 09, 2004
A Good Day - Monday, Nov. 08, 2004
Another letter - Thursday, Nov. 04, 2004