Accidents happen to people all the time. Some are silly and not harmful. Some are terrible and cause much pain and suffering.  I’ve had a few accidents in my life. None life threatening, but painful, nonetheless.    Two of our grandsons were in a car accident right before Christmas when someone ran a stop sign and broadsided them.  One grandson had a concussion and the other one got his feet cut by walking on broken glass from the accident while he was stocking footed.  I was so thankful because it could have been a lot worse. They were going to get pizza with a friend.  A last minute decision and their mother didn’t even know they had gone until she heard about the accident and found out her kids were in it!    A parent’s worse nightmare.  I know.  That’s another story.  This past week was a week for accidents at our house.

We have had some ice around the house for the past few days, so David has been taking care of the chickens for me because I really don’t have good shoes or boots for walking on ice.  He’s been doing so good, then one day he slipped and fell.  He came in and told me he had fallen and I told him he should call the doctor, but he refused.

The next day came and David decided maybe he should call the doctor and he went to see him and was sent for x-rays.  Later that day the doctor had seen the x-rays and said he wasn’t a technician, but he believed David’s arm was just deeply bruised.  Today, several days after, David showed me the bruise on his arm and it’s pretty bad.  He’s been in a lot of pain, but he still lifted chicken feed and other heavy things the other day. Now I feel guilty that he has to do this for me.  So now I’m wondering if his arm is broken.  I think he needs to see the doctor again, but he’s stubborn.

I can’t say much about being stubborn. Forward a few days after David’s accident, I was working in my shop with all the pups sleeping in their crates and it was time to put the puppies, who are large dogs now, outside.  Usually I have Lucy and Sugar sit and wait until I open the cage door, but that day I just started opening the door and they lunged for it and slammed it against my shin, really hard.  I thought to myself, “I’m going to have a bruise.” After I got all three dogs outside I rolled up my pants leg to see the damage and to my astonishment, blood was gushing out and running down my leg soaking my stocking.  I looked around for something to stop the bleeding. Luckily I had just brought a new roll of paper towels out there so I grabbed a wad of them and held them against my leg. Immediately they were soaked in blood. Oh, no!   So I grabbed some more and held them tightly on the wound.  Then I took some torn fabric and tied it like a tourniquet around my thigh and tied a few paper towel sheets onto the wound.  I was so afraid I’d bleed out and David would find me dead on the floor in a pool of blood.  I sat on a chair we have in my shop and put my leg up and waited for David to get home.

While sitting there I thought I should go inside and make supper. So I did.  My leg was still bleeding, but not nearly as much.  I got supper ready and when David walked in and he saw me he said, “What did you do!”  I proceeded to tell him and he looked at the wound and said, “That needs some stitches,”  and I said, “Nope.”  I’m tough. It will heal and maybe I’ll have a scar, but who will see it?  So I didn’t get stitches.

I’ve had stitches before.  Many years ago when our boys were little, we took a trip to Colorado Springs with  them and my parents.  We pulled our camper behind and we all slept in it.  When we got to Colorado Springs,  we were setting up camp and the windows were rolled out and as I walked around the camper I hit the corner of my eye on the window.  My mother said I needed stitches so David and I went to the hospital and I got stitches and had a black eye the rest of our vacation.  People would look at me funny and I wondered if they thought I had been hit by some person.

Another rather gruesome accident I had concerned a piece of driftwood I brought back from Michigan one year. It was in the shape of a dragon, but the bad thing about it was it had a huge spike sticking out of it.  I kept it out by our above ground pool for years and no one ever got hurt on it. Then the day came I was working around the pool and took a step by the driftwood and ran the spike right up into my lower leg.  It was in pretty far and there was no one around to help me, so I pulled it out.  It was pretty awful.  I cleaned the wound and bandaged it and when David saw it he said, “You should have stitches.”  But we had planned to drive to Cincinnati to a Reds game that very night, so I said, “No!”  and we went to the game,  I limped the whole evening, but I never went to the doctor and my leg healed and I have no scar there which is amazing.

I’ve had enough accidents to know to keep my tetanus shots up to date.

So David has worn a sling all week and I’m keeping my wound covered with a large bandaid and we keep on doing what we do every day.

I could tell you of more accidents I have had happen to me or to others, but I think I’ve told enough about them right now.

Have you every had an accident?   Here’s to safety first.  Bye.