That One Moment That Changed Everything

I learned the hard way how important it is to make every second count.

After spending that January day cooped up in my apartment working, I drove to the town common and took a brisk walk. I was recently separated after a long marriage, and the fresh air and exercise – even when cold – always gave me the opportunity to process emotions, to think, to breathe.

I had no idea that would be my last pain-free walk for a long, long time.

I drove back to my apartment complex, parked in the lot and started walking toward the entrance, carrying a bottle of red wine I had picked up on my way home.

And then I was watching that bottle of wine, at eye-level, rolling rapidly uphill away from me. I heard a cry; then realized it was coming from me. I was lying on my back on the pavement; my head and shoulders twisted in the direction the wine was headed. I was dazed, trying to comprehend how I had gone from being upright one moment to lying on the pavement the next.

I quieted myself – a little embarrassed to think how comical my fall must have looked, relieved that no one else seemed to have witnessed it. I flexed my arms and back, trying to determine if I was actually injured or just hurting from hitting the pavement. Then I looked down at my legs. My right foot was pointing directly up at the dark sky, but my left was canted off at an angle, pointing in the direction the wayward wine bottle had taken. I tried to straighten it … and cried out again as what felt like a bolt of lightning shot up my leg. I realized that I was really hurt. And that I wasn’t going to be able to move without help.

My cellphone – which had been in my hands along with the wine – was thankfully on the pavement next to me. I picked it up, and for a moment considered calling my teenage son – who was at his dad’s place that night – to come take me to the hospital. But, glancing back down at my foot’s unnatural position, I imagined him moving me the wrong way, and decided to call 911 instead.

I explained to the operator where I was, and that I thought I had broken my ankle and couldn’t get up. As she kept me talking on the phone, I watched as the bottle of wine slowed, stopped, then reversed direction, picking up speed as it rolled back down the hill toward me. By the time the EMTs arrived, I was laying there with both the bottle and phone in my hands.

“At least you didn’t break your wine,” one of them said.

That night, even as I was loaded onto a gurney, even as the EMTs cut off my jeans in the ambulance, I had no concept of how much my life had just been changed by that one little misstep on black ice. I had broken my lower leg in four places – nasty, twisted spiral fractures. The young surgeon at the regional medical center came into my room the next morning to tell me that I needed an orthopedic trauma surgeon – a level of expertise they didn’t have there. They were trying to get me into a larger hospital, but we were in the midst of a Covid-19 resurgence, and it was difficult to find an available space.

I spent three days in bed, waiting. Three days alone because visitors were not allowed during the pandemic. I stayed attached to a morphine pump, nauseous from the medication. I was petrified that my leg would heal incorrectly while I waited - that it would be forever misshapen, or worse, that it would never enable me to walk, to run, to dance again.

At one point, I asked the doctor how it was possible that I couldn’t remember the actual fall, couldn’t remember my leg breaking, couldn’t remember that single moment that had changed everything.

“I’m glad for you that you don’t remember,” he said. “Those breaks were caused by a violent twist. You don’t want to remember that.”

Finally, I was taken by ambulance to a Boston hospital for the surgery, and spent another three days in recovery before going home with a titanium rod and screws holding my bones together.

My son and his dad drove me home from the hospital and helped me get up the two flights of stairs to my apartment. I had to ask my child to move in with me full-time to help – and ask his dad to forego his time with our son to make that happen.

Suddenly, I depended on my family and friends for everything. To prepare and serve me meals. To bring me ice packs while I sat with my leg elevated. To clean the house, to load the dishwasher, to do the laundry. To pick up my pain medication and drive me to the doctor.

I literally had to ask my son to tuck me into bed those first few nights home – it hurt that much to move. It was a role reversal I was not prepared for, and it was humbling.

It was six weeks before I could put any weight on my leg; six months before I graduated from physical therapy.

My fall was five years ago this week. Since then, I’ve had follow-up surgery to remove most of the screws. I walk without a limp, can dance and play pickleball.

There are reminders, though, of my ordeal. When it’s really cold, my leg aches. Black ice makes me anxious, and I fear falling in a way I never did when I was younger.

But the most lasting impact is my understanding of how one’s life can change in just a fraction of a second. How one moment can transform you from being strong and fit and independent to being weak and broken and completely dependent on others.

I learned the hard way how important it is to make every second count.

Ice photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash