This is tangentially related to home improvement, since the incident happened on the lake house steps that I’ve spent so much time working on over the years, and because the injury is preventing me doing much home improvement while I recover. In mid July, I had just returned from a day on the lake, and had decided to drive the boat home and dock it, as opposed to leaving it at the lift. It was a beautiful evening:
After docking the boat and relaxing while watching the sunset for a little bit, I was carrying a cooler and some other things up from the dock at the lake house when I missed a step, fell off the side of the stairway, and suffered a freak landing that caused me to snap the tibia and fibula in my right leg. I was by myself, so I unfortunately had to drag myself up the stairs, army crawl through the dirt, and then scoot up the remaining steps by the house. I tried to sleep it off, with a combination of shock and denial convincing myself that maybe it was just a high ankle sprain. When I woke up the next morning, and could tell that my leg could clearly move in directions that it should not be able to, I called 911 and was picked up by an ambulance to have reconstructive surgery. After having a rod driven through my knee to support my tibia, plus a place and screws to support my fibula, I was able to start the road towards recovery.
It’s not a fun process, and puts a damper on some of my more active summer activities, but I’m grateful to be in once piece, and also grateful to be able to camp out in the guest house, where I have a bed, a couch, a bathroom, and a place to work all within a few feet of each other, and with very cold AC.
It will be late September before I’m fully back in action, but I’m starting to feel better every day!