A Trip, A Fall and a Shot in the Arm

It couldn’t have been a nicer morning—clear, crisp, not a cloud in the sky. I was out for a solo-run through a little town in the Catskills on the last day of my vacation with my husband. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, I slammed onto the road, cutting knees and elbows, scraping the palms of my hands. It was not a pretty sight.

As I cursed myself for my careless stupidity, I tried to assess what had happened, desperately looking for evidence to justify such a fall. There must have been something—a pothole, a crack in the road, a random rock or tree branch? But no, nothing. I came to the only conclusion I could—that a mass of sinister air had morphed into the shape of a leg, sticking out and tripping me as I jogged by, just for the fun of it. What else could possibly explain such a thing?

Out of respect for the queasy souls of the world (like me) who can’t stomach graphic images, I will abstain from providing a detailed description of the damage. Suffice it to say my fall was followed by dizziness, nausea, a black out and a trip to the ER. I was as white as a ghost, further evidence, I told myself, of the sinister leg-shaped air apparition that had so cruelly tripped me up. After the oxygen tubes, IV’s and blood tests, I was given a Tetanus shot (a precautionary measure to deal with whatever foreign substances had embedded in my knees) and released to spend the last day of my vacation propped in bed.

It had been a while since I’d stumbled while running, in fact, in the days before this latest episode I’d just been thinking how long it had been since something like that had happened. Maybe that explains it. I’d fallen twice in two separate road races many years ago, and sprained my ankle on an acorn in another incident while just steps from my house. The weirdest fall I remember was about five years ago when I suddenly wiped out coming down Moose Hill Parkway. When I got up to survey the area I saw it—a brown-spotted banana peel strategically placed on the side of the road.

In the days after my latest mishap I hobbled along, taking it all in stride. In fact—and my husband and I got a laugh or two out of this—my biggest complaint and primary reason for taking Advil was the throbbing pain in my upper arm from that darn Tetanus shot.

Though achy and a bit stiff, a few days after the incident I was feeling well enough to go out to a movie. As I hobbled across the street to the Dedham Community Theatre, I turned to my husband, joking how I felt like Ratso Rizzo before doing my best Dustin Hoffman imitation, limping and wobbling along. My husband chimed right in—“we’re walking here, we’re walking here!” as I continued my exaggerated left leg-dragging jerky movement performance. It was then that I saw him, a guy coming the other way, leg wrapped in a knee brace, limping along. Mortified that he presumed I was mocking him (there was no evidence of my injury, my wounds covered by capris), I scurried along as fast as I could, struggling to stifle my laughter.

As with many things, there was a plus side to all of this. With a pass on doing anything remotely physical that last day of our trip, I got to finish the books I’d picked up at the little flea market on our way—“Zuckerman Unbound” (Philip Roth) and “The Stranger” (Camus). And, as I often do when I’ve read books by authors I like, I went to the library upon my return home to pick up others—“Zuckerman Bound,” which included the prequel and sequel to the Roth story I’d read, and Camus’s “The Fall.” It wasn’t until I began writing of my experience that I realized the aptness of that last title.

(This column was originally published on townonline.com August, 2006)