On the 17th March 2025, I was unfortunate enough to fall within my tiny-house.
It was around 11pm at night, I could hear the rain getting heavier, and I realised I’d left the outside doors open to the power shed. After a while I knew I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep with this in mind (despite waking up around 4am that day, and so feeling very tired).
Coming down the stairs in my tiny-house, and still in the dark so as ‘not to wake myself too much’, I mis-counted how many I’d been down, and instead of side-stepping where I should lower down, I side-stepped into nothing 1.35m up. Fortunately somehow avoiding most other things in the small area, but landing mostly on my back (so probably falling centre of mass around 2.5m) and straining my lumbar region.
I saw stars, wanted to vomit, writhed on the floor in mostly a featal postion for about half an hour, and then dragged myself onto the nearby sofa to try and work through the pain.
After about half an hour more of this I thought I had enough energy to actually go and shut the door, but ollapsed onto the grass about half way there as my body gave out. I eventually got to shut the door anyway, and returned to my cabin to try and work through the pain further.
Around 1am I knew the back pain wasn’t abating, and so I started looking up symptoms and treatments for a fall like this. Then discovering that seeing stars and wanting to vomit was indications of a concussion (even though as far as I could tell I hadn’t hit my head directly), the recommendations were to get myself to emergency medical care as quickly as possible.
I knew the risks of getting Covid at hospital were high. But I also knew that not getting checked or treated for a concussion could be very significant.
So grabbing masks, goggles, a water bottle, extra layers of clothes, etc. I slowly walked my way over to my neighbour, to wake them up and ask them to drive me to the nearest hospital.
We got there around 2am. Fortunately it was pretty quiet (only two other people in the waiting room), and at around 3:30am I was able to see a triage nurse. My blood pressure was a healthy 120 / 80. Pulse was good. But pain was bad, so I was given 30mg of Codine, whilst waiting to see a Doctor.
5:30am, and the pain was still bad (unable to sit or stand in any postion for more than 3 minutes), so I was lead through to an exaination room, and given some more Codine whilst waiting to see the Doctor.
About 30 minutes later, just as the second dose was finally kicking in, and also as I was finally able to start relaxing a litlte (having also been awake for more than 25 hours at this point), another nurse came in to recheck my blood pressure whilst sitting. They then asked me to stand for two minutes so they could check it again. Just as we were about to reach the 2 minute point, my blood pressure dropped to 66 / 33 as my body started collapsing, so I directed myself to sit back down again rather than falling forward.
Soon after, I was able to see a doctor, who checked my reflexes and sensations in my feet and legs, asked a bunch of questions, and was told to wait for the radiology ward to open to get a CT scan of my head to check for signs of fractures or similar.
Fortunately the CT scan came back clear enough for me to be discharged. I was given some paperwork, and then headed home to rest.
The first two weeks particularly were swapping between laying out flat on my sofa, and laying on my bed to sleep. Ocassionally getting up to reheat some food (thanks to former food prep).
I was mistakingly watching kids cartoons as a way to try and relax and distract my AuDHD brain, but it was still taking me six hours to watch a 90 minute kids movie.
After about two weeks I thought the concussion symptoms were largely gone, and so my tiredness was now just primarily down to my back pain and healing. So I arranged to meet with a physiotherapist via telehealth, to try and get some exercises to start rehabilitating my lumbar region.
The day after, I felt I had enough energy to make a start on those exercises. But doing just one rep of the most gentle lumbar stretches (two of the five exercises given) caused some sort of trauma response and my concussion symptoms were pushed back to about a week earlier.
It’s now around 15 months on, and I’ve still not fully recovered. What I used to be able to do in ‘a day’ now takes me more than a week. I’m getting more and more of my former brain function and physical energy back, but it’s incredibly slow.
I’ve come to accept my new normal for the time being. I’m far better off than so many others in a similar position, So I’m grateful.