More bad news. I fell this past Saturday. I was going to my writers’ group’s monthly meeting – which I’d been missing for a long time – and while climbing the steps to a front porch, tumbled over the side and fell perhaps three or four feet. The ground was hard and I think there was a half-buried rock. And there was the sharp edge of a blacktop driveway which my head struck, and split. Not a big cut as it turned out, but blood simply poured out. I was never unconscious but was very dizzy; I looked up and saw the treetops just whizzing past. The homeowner came rushing down and knelt beside me and said “Don’t move, I’m calling 911.” When he stood up, the knee and downward on his trousers was bloody, which made me stop arguing with him that I was okay. Other members of the group came out to commiserate and very quickly there was a siren. They took me by ambulance to Abbott Northwestern’s emergency room, where all this mess began back in March, so it was sadly familiar. I had an MRI – negative, no concussion – my hair was cleaned and the injury glued shut. I was told to go home, rest and try not to fall again. I am trying hard to follow instructions.

I had Ellen take a picture of my bloody, matted hair, but it’s so gross I will spare you all.

Yesterday in the mail I got a slender album of pictures and history of my father’s side of the family dating from the Civil War. It’s the work of Linda Ewebank, a cousin, and it’s beautiful, informative, awesome. Makes me kind of sad I have no children to leave it to.