Call me an idiot

I suppose I should be thankful, although I think someone should paint the word "IDIOT" on my forehead in large red letters.

On Sunday morning I was doing my best to eliminate any possible "ice dam" problems on our roof at home. I leaned an extension ladder from the flat roof of the garage against the edge of the roof on our sunroom--another 9 or 10 feet above the garage roof. I noticed that the garage roof, covered with a rubber membrane, was a little wet and slippery, but that didn't stop THE IDIOT from climbing up the ladder. Near the top--again, 9 or 10 feet up in the air--the extension ladder quickly slid downward from its perch on the edge of the sunroom; the little feet of the ladder simply would not hold on that wet, slippery garage roof. I went down with the ladder and rammed my right side into the metal rungs when it hit bottom.

The wind was knocked out of me, and my right side already hurt. I saw a teeny bit of blood on my clothes. I rolled around in agony for a bit, gasping and groaning, and feeling a little in shock. But I eventually got up, leaned the extension ladder against the gutter of the garage, and climbed down to the ground.

Initially I was just sore and a little panicked. So I took a hot bath. And then, in the next hour or so, my right thigh started to swell up, big time. I applied ice, but it still looked about twice as thick as my left thigh. A blood clot? A broken leg? It was time to head to urgent care.

Thankfully, x-rays revealed that I didn't have a broken femur, or a broken anything. But I have sore ribs and a black and blue area on my right leg that's the size of Cleveland. And I'm hobbling around with continuous doses of ibuprofin.

We only get so many chances. Many years ago, our neighbor Bruce took one dive into a body of water that was too shallow, and he's been in a wheelchair ever since. As sore as I am, I need to count my blessings. But the contententious introvert gave new meaning this past weekend to the term idiot--I'd kick myself even more, but it's too hard to bend my leg!