The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Although this is the same date as my last published blog, I wrote that one on May 15th, while I was in New Orleans on business. I was waiting for more to happen, but it never did, and time got away from me.

So today is June 5th, and I guess I should talk about the ugly. I've done a lot of light construction work in the past, and lots of work on ladders. I've never been seriously injured that I can remember. But that changed when I had a wooden stepladder collapse under me last Saturday at the house. Alagandro and I were nailing solid foam insulation on the underside of the first floor, to keep the heat from the radiant in-floor tubing radianting upwards. We both were on 5' ladders, standing between the rafters. I was on the fourth rung or so, and when I took a step down, the ladder collapsed. It shattered, and there wasn't time to do anything but fall. I fell backwards from about five feet up, landing on both wrists and my rear end. My left wrist was shattered; the surgeon said the bones looked like corn flakes. My right wrist was badly sprained, but not broken. My back hurt pretty badly, but turned out not to be broken, either. Overall, I think I got off pretty easily. I hit my head pretty hard on the wall. I could have broken my neck or back, or both arms. The wrist is pretty bad, but things could be a lot worse.



One good thing is that all the pain medications have helped my back pain. I'm hoping I'll be able to go back to work next week.



Progress on the house has been moving along. The basement floor has been polished, the sheetrock will be hung this week and next, and we have a contract for the stucco.



My brother, Cliff, and his wife Rosa, are going to help me with landscaping this weekend, and I can finally get some plants in. My injury will cause things to slow down, but not stop.