Backache

  We had a crazy Thursday here.  Early in the morning Lydia woke up and Dave went to get her.  At the top of the stairs Dave's feet slipped, he landed on the top stair and dropped Lydia, and they both went tumbling.   The whole fall I hear "bump, bump, bump" and  "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!  I'm sorry!"   At the bottom of the steps I found Lydia laying on her belly and Dave trying to pick her up.  I grabbed Lydia and Dave rolled onto his back asking about Lydia but barely able to breath because he was in pain.

    I took Lydia to the couch and checked for broken bones or bruises or blood and she was already smiling at me.  She was perfectly fine except for a tiny bump on her lower eyelid...you can kind of see the carpet burns here (our stairs are carpet)

   So, I go over to Dave, who is still on the floor and tell her she is alright and he is rolling on the floor in pain.  I ask him if he's OK and he all of a sudden stiffens and starts trembling and gets red in the face.  I start yelling his name and there's no response.  I'm crying and yelling and decide to call 911 and finally he looks up at me and asks me why I'm so sad.  He also says his back hurts.  Although Dave is still insisting he's fine I call 911 anyway and they take Lydia and Dave away in an ambulance, Dave on a huge backboard with neck braces and all.  Alex and I follow in the car.

   The whole time Alex was having a blast.  He drew pictures for Dave while he was on the floor, he kept telling me it would be OK, and he kept shouting "follow that ambulance!"

   So, after hours and many tests, we find that Dave has a compression fracture on his vertebrae (T12 for all you anatomy folks).  Lydia's perfectly fine, just a shiner on her left eye.  Dave is OK and would rather have pain than feel loopy on the drugs.  So, a day later we're all good and can even joke a little bit about how pathetic we are...now everyone in our family has had a hospital visit due to falling down those stairs.  Not a good record :)