Pride comes before a fall!
Many of you know that it snows a lot here in Slovakia. And one of the consequences of that beautiful white stuff is icy sidewalks! For the past four winters, I have been keeping track of my progress in NOT FALLING DOWN. The first winter, I bit the (ice) a whopping FOUR TIMES. The second winter, it was three. The third winter only once! And last year, only once! I thought this was my year…we didn’t have much snow, and I was in the states for a longer period of time, so I was BOASTING that I was going to make it through my first winter without falling down in some embarrasing way. And then…
Well, let’s put it this way. I had THE MOST embarrasing fall of all. I was leaving the University after a meeting with some students, and I’m just not sure what happened that caused me to totally miss the last four steps! In front of strangers, I wiped out. I fell, my bag went flying, my keys soared to the other side of the hallway, and I was spread out on the floor. My first instinct was to assure everyone that I was okay, so in Slovak, I was trying to laugh it off and tell people to move on. I’m not really sure what I said. But then I quickly realized that I was not okay and would need some help. I called my friends Gavin and Stani, and they both made it to the University in about 10 minutes. They carried me to the car and took me to the hospital. By the way, I’ve been to the hospital more since I’ve lived over here than I did in the last 10 years of living in America. With this emergency room visit, I can now say that I’ve been to the emergency room in Poland, Czech, and Slovakia. I guess it would have been sad to not include my home away from home country in that equation! At any rate, a few hours later I was told that I had not broken my ankle but only badly sprained it. I’ve been on the couch with my foot up, and I’m so sad to report that my perfect non-falling winter season is now tainted. Sigh. Maybe next winter will be my year. For sure, I will not brag until the birds are chirping!
