I was rushing into Toronto, with my father, to get our travel visas for Indonesia.  Much to our surprise the Indonesian consulate, located at Jarvis and Richmond, closes at 12:30pm.  After some coaxing on my part, my father agreed to try and drop off our paperwork, even though it was 11am and we were planning on going in for mid-afternoon.   Luckily we arrived at 12:15 and, delighted, I trotted from the car to the consulate.

It was then, with clock ticking, that I lost both my footing and my dignity.  Tripping over a curb (located here) that snuck up on me, I fell down with my full weight – trapping my fist under my leftside of my chest.  It must have looked like a very bad fall, as someone actually rolled down their window and asked “Hey!  Are you alright?”.  Even though I was seeing stars and had mostly lost my breath, I nodded and gave a tough-guy thumbs up.   After shambling my way into the Consulate office and getting our visa paperwork together, our trip was a success…although I was starting to think I should see a doctor.

A couple of agonizing hours later I was back in Guelph at the hospital where I waited several hours for an X-Ray which was inconclusive.  The ER did a great job – they were jam packed with ambulance calls and triage worked exactly as it is supposed to.  The Doctor did the best he could: “If it’s better in a week, it’s bruised…if it takes a month, it’s broken.”  Not very helpful, but then again the sick note for 3 days off and the Percocet scrip were very helpful.

I’ve very thankful I didn’t hit my head and I’ve been very lucky to have great help from my family while I deal with healing my broken bones.

Is there a lesson in this?  Perhaps.

Ribs, much like footing and dignity, are easily taken for granted.  Losing any of them provides an instructive reminder to how important they are.

Or maybe…I should sue PetroCan since I fell on their property <grin>.