One evening a couple of days ago I was in my office going through the mail and stuff, and sitting in my office chair and leaned over--way too far over-- to reach something, and the chair tipped over and dumped me BLAM on the floor! I fell on my left hip again--and bonked my head hard on the edge of the oak desk. I saw stars, and a hair clip that was at the impact site on my head shattered into little bits and pieces. I jammed my left elbow and scratched my nose in the incident.

I had a series of falls last year, hitting my head hard each time. How many concussions can a person have without permanent impairment? I don't want to wind up like Muhammed Ali, drooling on myself, you know?

This fall produced a symptom I never had with the other bonks on the head. I got a headache. As a nurse, I thought about a closed head injury.
Last year, actor Liam Neeson's wife Natasha (part of the Redgrave acting family) hit her head on the ski slopes and refused medical treatment, saying she was okay. Then hours later she developed a headache and died from a closed head injury; bleeding into the brain.
So I was thinking I needed to stay up that night and check my pupils for uneven dilation, and stay awake--I didn't want to go coma in my sleep.

I stayed awake till 3am, and just couldn't stay awake any longer so I went to bed hoping I'd wake up. But I was thinking the silliest thing. The last thing I had eaten before the fall was some meatballs I had simmered in Prego. They didn't taste right; they were missing some ingredient I couldn't finger.
So I went to sleep hoping my last meal wasn't those inferior meatballs! No, I want to choose a better last meal than that. But that's the roll of the dice in life, you never know when that last cup of coffee--or a blah meatball-- will be your last.

susil