I woke up this morning and felt sore - - like muscle-achy. That feeling you have in the morning after a very grueling workout the day before. That first-work-out-after-a-year-of-sitting-on-my-ass kind. I couldn’t figure out why I was so sore. Hmmm….I definitely didn’t have a night of wild sex last night. I certainly wasn’t strapped to an X frame getting beat with a leather flogger. I know I didn’t work out. Well, I got up and went into my office and was drinking my coffee. I hit the top of my knee on the under part of my desk and felt it. OWWWWIE! I looked at my knee and saw the biggest purplest bruise I’ve ever had (well on my knee, that is).

That’s when I remembered something that I had obviously, for good reason, put out of my mind completely. I fell yesterday. Not just a little fall that no one noticed. But a tremendously huge fall that everyone saw and then commented on. I was in a nursing home going to see a patient that was going to be discharged home with home care and hospice. The patient is on the fourth floor. I rode the elevator up..the buzzer rang…the door opened and I stepped out, catching my toe on the little lip of metal that is between the elevator and the floor. I didn’t fall. I FLEW out of the elevator. My binder that I was carrying went flying so hard that it hit the opposite wall on the other side of the hallway and exploded - - papers every which way. As for me - I hit the ground HARD. I came millimeters away from smashing my teeth into the linoleum.

But of course the Nurses station is right there, right? Approximately 6 people standing there staring at me - - a few stepped out from behind it to come rescue me to see if I was all right. I noticed one of them actually laughing (I don’t blame them - I’m sure it was funny in a Marx Bro’s. sorta way). So how do you recover from this? Any comments from the peanut gallery?

I just looked up at all the faces…some of them concerned, some of them scared, some of them amused - - and I smiled and said “Hi - I was sent here from the Wisconsin Department of Health and Safety to do an audit on the emergency response time of your licensed health care workers - - you’re all fired.”

Well, it got a laugh from them.

As for me — I have a sore shoulder….a sore right leg….a bruised left knee and a bruised ego.