IF I ONLY HAD A "LITTLE GIANT"

Monday morning I got up and thought I would save my dear husband some time by painting the trim on the house. The boys got most of the painting done before they left for college but the trim was left. We drew up a calendar plan for the projects that we wanted to get done before Ashley's wedding in July BUT I thought I was doing us all a favor by jumping ahead. Well, that did not serve me well at all. In fact...the cost of my "ACCIDENT" will outweigh what it would have cost to have professional house painters come and paint the whole house. I painted all that I could reach on foot (with my short legs) and then drug our "less than quality" aluminum ladder out for the rest of the job. I climbed to the top and painted the window trim on the upper level of the house with no problem but when I moved over to the face board on the side of the back porch, I did not secure the ladder very well. I realized that when I climbed up 4 feet. I had already dipped my brush into the paint bucket so I was going to just brush off the paint and go down the ladder and adjust it. As I took my first stroke of the brush the ladder slipped from it's non secure location and fell to the south as I dropped to the north. The rungs slid down the back of my leg, leaving a big bruise and I landed first on my tail bone then whip lashed my neck and fell backwards on the cement walk. As luck would have it, my head was "cushioned" by a hair clip that dug it's way into my scalp leaving a pretty good size hole in my head. Upon hearing the ladder crash and my "yelp" with the fall, Ashley Thyer came rushing over to see what she could do to help me. I was a bit dazed but never lost consciousness but knew I was hurting. I just couldn't pinpoint where. My leg felt as though it was bleeding but not a scratch to be found on it. Later it revealed two good sized bruises. I landed straight on my tailbone and I have done this before a couple of times so I knew that was going to give me pain. As I lay on the newly mown grass with paint all over me I felt my head and discovered a pool of blood was forming. I know that head wounds are often not as bad as they seem so I fluffed that one off. Ashley kept it together and got me a wash cloth to place over my head and a towel to rest it on. She got the phone and called Dave to see if he could come home and assess the situation. She was so brave. She found a spider crawling towards me and she managed to kill it with a shoe. She said she had just conquered her fears. (She's deathly afraid of spiders and not too fond of blood.) What a trooper. Dave was clear across town when Ashley called so it took him about 15 or 20 minutes to get home and I was not about to go anywhere until his arrival. He checked me out to make sure that I did not have numbness in my extremities and got me up and insisted on taking me to the ER. "NO...I KNOW HOW MUCH THAT COST" was my rebuttal. The cost was not an issue here. He wanted to make sure that I got the proper evaluation. Thanks honey! I appreciate your concern! After FIVE HOURS in the ER, a CAT scan of my head and neck and x-rays of my tailbone and a staple in my head, I finally got to amble out of the hospital and curl up in bed with ice packs from head to heel. I stayed there the rest of that day and ALL DAY on Tuesday. Today I managed to make it to work for about 8 hours but I was sure glad to be surrounded by ice once again. Dave said I should have stuck with the project schedule and this would not have happened. I say...if we had a "LITTLE GIANT LADDER" this wouldn't have happened. Does anyone know where we can get one? The infamous aluminum ladder.
The spot that I landed with my head about the point of the white blotch at the right of the photo.
The mess that I will ever be reminded of my folly when I look out the back door!
A self portrait of the back of my leg where the ladder smacked me twice.