Taking A Tumble

I have lived in this home for 4 years now. It is a duplex. The bedrooms and bathrooms are upstairs. For 4 years I have gone up and down these creaking wooden stairs. Sometimes I have the energy to run up and down the stairs...and sometimes I take my time going up and down the stairs. When it is slow going it is usually because I am stiff from an exercise routine! I have never stumbled on these stairs...until a few days ago! Why? Thanks to Load shedding (for those who do not know what load shedding is it is when our power/electricity supplier takes action to reduce electricity supply to avoid excessive load on the generating plant. South Africa is running out of electricity!) in this crime infested, disintegrating country of ours! I needed to go down to the kitchen and thought it would be ok not to take the emergency light with me. I have gone down those stairs often enough in the dark. So I slowly made my way down in the dark. Well, this time did not go too well. I misjudged my step at the last 3 stairs. Next thing I knew I was in the air and came crashing down onto the stairs! You know when you see a cartoon character take a fall and it shows those stars above its head? Well, I seriously saw stars!! I thought I was going to pass out from the pain as I landed on my back and slid down the last 3 stairs. I quickly got up to prevent myself from passing out. That was quite a scare! Thank goodness I was already at the bottom of the stairs. It would have been disastrous if I had still been at the top! My back hurt like hell but I could feel nothing was broken. My left elbow was throbbing from pain. I don't even remember if I hit my elbow into the wall or if it also connected with the edge of the stairs. I took some anti inflammatory pills and crawled back up the stairs and went to bed. The neighbour's were out, so if it had been serious, no one would have immediately known what had happened to me. My gosh! Next day I felt like a rugby player that has been tackled the entire game! My back had some bruising on the right side, my left buttock had a nice black welt across it and my elbow had an enormous bruise and some broken skin in the centre of it. Accidents happen very fast. I was lucky! I have heard and read of so many women that have fallen down the stairs and have died. There was even a woman in London (I think it was London. Not sure now) whose body was not discovered for 2 or 3 years!!! Today is the first day I feel no pain. Lesson learnt! From now on I make sure I have the emergency light on at the top of the stairs if I need to go downstairs during Load shedding! Today I can laugh about my fall 😂 but when it happened it was very scary.