Reality strikes, followed quickly by the floor

Up early once again and from there got down to various issues. Most important news of the day is that we got a call from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) to give us the date for Ottawacker Jr.’s elbow surgery. You may recall, if you have not fallen asleep after the opening line of any of my previous blog posts, that he is suffering from a disease/condition called osteo-chondritis dissecans (OCD). This causes him no pain, but can deteriorate unless operated upon. Rather than risk his elbow falling off, we went for the operation option. The phone call, in addition to providing the date of surgery, left me with a long list of things to do. Top of the list was to tell Mrs. Ottawacker, so she can look after it all. It’s scheduled for July 9, by the way.
 
I had to draft a series of emails to various coaches telling them that he would not be available after his July 7 match – and that we would probably keep him away from that one too, as he has to be in perfect health for the operation. “There’s no ‘just getting over something’ or ‘just coming down with something’ allowed,” said Sheri or Shari or Sherry, however she spells her name, who called from the hospital. “He has to be in perfect health.” I wondered whether to query this or not – how many people in perfect health actually need an operation, for example – but decided that discretion was the better part of valour. Besides, I am chicken at the best of times.
 
After that excitement, and who says we don’t live thrilling, rollercoaster-rides of lives, Trevor came around to clean out our eavestroughs (guttering to you and me) and then do our windows. I’m not sure about you, but one thing I will never do, no matter how poor I become, is clean my own outside windows. It is a thankless, hopeless task; a nightmare of a job. I can get into impossible binds changing a light bulb: there is no way, no way on God’s green earth, that I am getting up a ladder to clean a window. Trevor turned up a couple of hours early, which was unusual but nice, refused a cup of tea, and then, five minutes later, told me that my eavestroughs were already pretty clean. For this, he gave me—unbidden and spontaneously—a good discount. I was impressed. I mean, it’s not as if I would have known. So, if you ever need windows cleaning at good rates and with reliable service, call Trevor at Prism Cleaning.
 
After a quick call with friends out in BC to tell them of the impending operation (it is with Iwona and Gene that he is going to stay at the end of July—and I checked with the Xerez variants that he would still be able to travel), I decided to put the screens back on the window. This is where it all started to go pear shaped. I was replacing the small screen at the bottom of the stairs in the basement when it happened. Three or four stairs up, I balanced to push it in, succeeded, felt incredibly proud of myself, and took a step back to admire my handiwork. Down I went. It might only have been the final three or four stairs, but it was enough to mess me up. I heard my left foot crack, landed on my left hip, smacked my wrist against the dresser at the bottom of the stairs, and banged my head (gently enough though) on the floor. It was reasonably painful – and I must have made a fair bit of noise because Ottawacker Jr. came running to see what was up. I did manage to get up unaided, but then noticed that I was in quite a bit of pain and probably needed to sit back down. I was covered in ice packs and tensor bandages pretty quickly, liberally dosed with Tylenol to help numb the pain, and had my fevered brow ministered to (damn that dangling preposition). Then, I started to inspect the damage.
 
Surprisingly, this was not as much as I had feared. True, I had a haematoma the size of a cricket ball on my left hip – but, on the plus side, my partial hip replacement from 2006 had not popped out. My left ankle was swollen, my small toe was the size of my big toe, and I couldn’t put any weight on my foot at all. I could, however, wiggle my toes and move my ankle without screaming. Well, without screaming loudly. My left wrist was hurting and my shoulder was sore – but my head was fine and there seemed to be no problems with my back or neck. I might conceivably survive. And besides, I had proved my capability by putting a screen window back in place.
 
I spent the rest of the evening reclined like a Roman emperor in the La-Z-Boy, being brought bunches of grapes and wine, popping pain killers and generally feeling sorry for myself. At 9, bruised but unbowed, I allowed myself to be helped up the stairs to bed, Mrs. Ottawacker carefully pulling back the covers so I didn’t exert myself unduly, and tried to sleep. Confident that I wouldn’t be able to – I was in far too much pain – I put my head on the pillow and slept till around 6 a.m.