16-32-64 nineteen

Vicky's best fails/falls (and the damage done):

• falling down the stairs at my parents - despite the fact that seven people lived there over thirty years and the stairwell was to what was my bedroom for a good five years; I was the only one to ever fall. I blamed my dad - it was father's day and I was visiting; taking him a sausage sandwich and a coffee. I think I slipped; felt carpet against my knees and somehow over-righted myself. I can honestly remember thinking "ceiling, that's not good" and feeling the hot coffee splash on my hand. The sandwich survived - I put the plate down neatly on the top step apparently. I fell down about a dozen steps and landed CRACK with my head against a doorway at the bottom. I think it was only four stitches; but that one was an ambulance job and probably the most serious.  
• falling near home last year - having chemotherapy means everything takes forever to heal; so when I twisted/slipped/tripped this time, tearing my face along gravel was a real problem. Two guys came running over but fortunately I was a minute from home so didn't take their help (hideous embarrassment coupled with total and utter Britishness of "tis a scratch"). When I got in I realised why they were so worried - it looked like I'd broken my nose. As I've said, my left arm only has about 50% reach these days and doesn't stretch out automatically in the way that it should; so I go face-first whenever I fall. My glasses tore into the bridge of my nose, the end of my nose was grazed and I sported a Charlie Chaplin moustache of grazed skin above my lip for weeks afterwards. One of my disability applications was due so the image is immortalised... 

• breaking an outdoor wooden step on a newly built bungalow we were exploring near my sister's house; I tried stepping onto the unsupported end of the step and flipped the wood onto the walkway - grabbing at my niece as I fell. I was left with incredible bruises on my back as I fell onto steps on the way down. My niece came off just as badly - my grab sent her falling forward; her flip-flop fell off and she trod on a newly exposed nail that went straight into her foot. This was pre-cancer and I had no idea I also had vertebrae mets at the time; but the bruise was impressive enough on it's own and the only thing that soothed it was swimming. That was the week we visited Durdle Door fortunately, and I spent some very happy hours floating away.
• twisting an ankle near work and going down on both knees in the middle of the road HARD at lunchtime one day. The pain in my knee was hidden by that in the ankle - I remember being sure that if I had eaten already I would have been sick. I lasted a little longer at my desk and then my colleagues put me on the staff bus to our local Walk-in clinic, where they x-rayed and found I'd given myself Osteochondritis Dissecans which is floating bits of cartilage that have broken off and escaped. That was painful for some time afterwards!
• jumping off a wall which was a full ONE BRICK high; landing on a badly placed foot which twisted the ankle. I had to limp home because when I was twelve there were no mobile phones to call for help. The next day we left for a boating holiday on the Norfolk Broads which required being a lot more mobile than I was; what with crutches and a foot that honestly looked like I had a tennis ball shoved down the sock. Mum says as we left a week later I told her; "I am never getting on a boat again". 
• twisting my ankle down a pot-hole when I was about eight; the doctor told me the next day that if I had twisted it the other way it would have broken every bone in my foot. I've never known how much truth there was to that; domino bones in the foot? But it's always stayed with me.
• falling on holiday in Devon this year. The family behind me; both sisters and a partner, plus mum (who later said I would kill her with a heart attack) and my niece, who is seventeen and endlessly more mature than I am. They're all saying I shouldn't even try walking across these massive, wobbly rocks down to the beach which is packed with people and children of all ages are using the time to explore. Children everywhere playing on the rocks.
  I'm in a grump at being treated like a child and I went ahead anyway. Within moments I managed to fall and turn at the same time; I ended up with my head lower than my ass, which was lower than my feet on the rock-hill; and hearing mum shriek my name was enough to let me know I was never going to live this down. She has an incredible way of saying my name whenever she's witness to these events which sounds like I'm being told off - half way through a fall I'm often tempted to yell back "it's not my fault" but never quite manage it. 
  (the idea of 16-32-64 came to me on this holiday because I felt treated like a kid so much)

I think that's the best of the lot - I'll add any more if I think of them. I've never been a great breaker of bones or anything - a simple trip in the street when I was about six caused a "greenstick fracture" that was easily strapped up and healed. Other than that, my brother is the one that breaks bones - like ribs on the first day of a snowboarding holiday. Oh and so many more stories...