falling down the stairs

I was in the preschool office when the call came in. Incoming Preschool Director Sofia Henry answered the phone call from Outgoing Preschool Director Dani Peeling. The look on Sofia’s face told the story. Something had happened and it was serious. She said, “I’ll be right there.” As she rose from her desk she said, “Dani has fallen down the steps at her house and they have called 911.”

As Dani was coming down the steps that morning she was hurrying because she was running late. She stumbled, landed on her bottom, and heard something crack. What she didn’t know at the time was that she had a compression fracture of the L-4 vertebrae in her back. What she did know was, lying on the floor at the foot of her stairs, she couldn’t feel or move her legs.

Several hours later, when Sofia returned to the office, she gave us a report. Dani had fallen while her husband was out of town for the first time since their kids were born. (Great timing, right?) The ambulance took her to Fairfax Hospital where x-rays revealed her fracture. She would be having surgery that night to install a hardware store full of metal that would stabilize her back. By the time Sofia left the hospital, feeling was already returning to Dani’s legs and the doctors assured her that she would make a full recovery.

As I write these words Dani is still in the hospital and is expected to go home in a few days. She will get there just a few weeks before she and her family move to Florida, another example of her impeccable timing.

Sunday afternoon, Justine and I visited her at Fairfax. She looked pretty good for someone who had just experienced such a bodacious booboo. We talked about how scarry it was, how painful it was, and how it could have been so much worse. We’ve all heard stories of people who have had similar accidents and were paralyzed for life. Our lives can turn on a dime and everything can change in an instant. Was it luck? Was it God’s intervention? Was her guardian angel watching out for her, or did the angel push her down the stairs? I don’t know. What I do know is I’m going to praise God that Dani is okay, and I’m going to be mighty careful as I go down the steps.

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