Another Fall

Less than two weeks after I fell while hiking down the trail from Algonquin/Iroquois/Wright, I fell again. Clearly, I am the world's clumsiest person.

This time I wasn't scaling high mountains, I was descending a long flight of stairs. 110 steps to be precise, although they are broken up by flat (or gently sloping) bits of pavement. After several days of humidity and rain, the wooden steps were as slick as snail snot. Or at the very least, they were much slipperier than normal. And I can say that because I use these stairs twice a day, five days a week. They are outdoors but covered and loosely sided. The precipitation still gets through.

I was wearing practical shoes (because that's how I roll), but my feet slipped out from beneath me and I went straight down and landed on my tailbone. Then I bounced down at least two or three more steps before I was able to arrest my fall. Again on my tailbone.

The lone witness to my embarrassing slip was a young woman who hastened over to see if I was alright and to reassure me that she'd fallen on the same steps herself. I was in such pain that I failed to show my gratitude for her graciousness and concern. I did manage to pick myself up and slowly make my way to my office.

Unfortunately, the pain in my tailbone area (coccyx is such an unappealing word) did not fade over the next few hours. Nor did my irritation. Why didn't the stairs have some sort of anti-slip traction device on the surface of each step? So I decided to report the incident in hopes of improving the safety of the stairwell. Next thing I knew I had four men in my office discussing my sore backside. Woe is me.

Now it's almost a week later and I still can't sit without pain and climbing hills or stairs puts an uncomfortable amount of pressure on my tailbone area. I have no idea if I fractured my tailbone or if it's just badly bruised. From my reading on the interwebs, it appears there is little that can be done for a tailbone injury other than rest.  And rest doesn't mix well with my goal of getting a minimum of 10,000 steps a day.

So far no improvements have been made to the stairs, nor do I expect it will ever happen. I did skip my after work walk today (but not my 20 minute walks to/from work or my mid-afternoon mini-walk). That's my idea of resting.