The Fall

We are home from Portugal. Now, I can tell you this - I had a very nasty, frightening mechanical fall on our first afternoon in Lisbon. I lacerated the top of my head and received approximately 11 stitches. Just typing that much makes me a little sweaty and nauseous. 

Let me see if I can describe this for you...We were at a little cafe/bakery and had finished our coffee and our first pasties de nata - an amazing pastry with flaky crust and egg custard. The older woman in line in front of us shook cinnamon on ours. The cafe was on a hill and had decks outside with tables and chairs, the decks were on either side of the entry so one was higher than the other. We sat outside, watched the people, basked in the sun. As we were getting ready to go, I pushed my chair back and the leg met with some resistance. It was, of course, the strip of wood nailed to the edge of the deck to keep the legs of the chairs from going off the edge of the deck. Well, I gave myself a good push, launched myself and the chair I was sitting in right over the strip of wood and backward off the deck. I landed, still in the chair, across the walkway and the top of my head caught the edge of the lower deck on the other side giving me a really impressive laceration. 

Here is a picture of the spot. I feel off of the deck on the right and my head hit the deck on the left:

I never lost consciousness. I didn't get nauseated or vomit. I reached behind my head and when I looked at my fingers there was blood. Two women were passing by when this happened. They were both doctors from England. They stopped to help - one of them started talking to me, asked my name and they both checked my neck, touched my ankles to see if I could feel, looked at my eyes. Medics were called. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. There a wonderful doctor, Anna, an orthopedic surgeon working in the emergency room, stitched up my head. I got a CT scan, got the all clear and headed back to the apartment. My fabulous mother-in-law managed to get the blood out of my clothes... there was a lot of blood... 

I'm fine... The injury didn't slow me down. I think the chair absorbed a lot of energy of the fall so I haven't even been very sore. No headache. No giant goose egg on my head. 

I've told Mr R that from now on, we shall refer to this incident as "The Fall". 

There are a million other details to this story. It was a very profound event. I start to cry when I think about it. There was incredible grace and beauty. The vaulted ceilings and beautiful blue tiles in the hospital. (I gasped a bit when I first saw them. We had been in a newer, more utilitarian part of the hospital and on the way to Radiology, we rounded a corner there was this incredible beauty. I laughed and said that we were lucky, not all tourists got the chance to see this.) The air filled with swallows on our walk home. The kindness and compassion of everyone. The profound sense of the human experience beyond language and culture that ties us all together. 

Know that I am fine. I had an amazing trip to Portugal. More stories, thoughts, impressions to come...