I've waited 40 years for this chance

I've waited 40 years for this chance. A chance to grade the accessibility, usability, and humanity of the world.

The story: lying in the hammock rocking my daughter to sleep, she was getting fussy so I wanted to pick her up onto the bed. Both my legs were at the head of the hammock, my left foot stepped down first as support, left arm under the baby, right arm around her neck to lift her. My left foot stood up as support, my right foot coming down from the hammock got caught. At that point, out of habit, my upper body cradling the baby was already leaning in the direction of my right foot. Feeling both stuck and falling, I swung my right foot hard forward to plant a step. I didn't expect the momentum to be so strong it pushed my whole body forward. I quickly spun the baby into my chest so my arm and shoulder would hit the ground.

BAM!

My shoulder landed pretty softly thanks to ten years of weightlifting, my head hit the wooden cabinet and was fine. But somehow a feeling I couldn't hold back flooded up from my foot through my whole body. I gritted my teeth to suppress it, glanced over at the baby to see if she was okay. She was fine. The storm of sensation came back in waves. I clenched my teeth hard again to press it down and get the strength to stand up, open the door, and call her mother to come up and take her.

Sitting down on the floor, I started letting the body go so the flood could break the levee. Oh my god what is this. My capacity for managing emotion was too weak to hold it — I'd held it in a few times before and it was already too much. I told myself shit, this is not okay, you need to go lie down. But if I lay down I'd have a hard time getting back up. I climbed down the stairs, opened the fridge, and drank two glasses of 300ml water to prep for lying down. Right at that point my whole body suddenly went terribly cold, shivering like a viral fever. Shit, I'd been hot just before this, this isn't right. I quickly pulled up my Apple Watch and hit heart rate: 84… 83… 82… 80. Damn, this is serious — I'd been active, my heart rate had been 100–120 bpm all this time, and now it was dropping fast, what the hell? At the same time, my body started shaking uncontrollably, both rows of teeth drumming chatter-chatter-chatter. I grabbed a shirt, hopped on one foot up the stairs, gritted my teeth, went into the bathroom to empty the bowels clean. Pulled the curtain shut, flopped onto the mattress, hugged the pillow, pulled the blanket over me and curled up to get warm… and fell asleep without knowing when.

6 AM, I'm still alive. The body had tried to roll over and sleep more to recover, but the foot hurt: you're not sleeping anymore.

Results:
- Posterior ankle fracture. The foot has two ankles on both sides, and an inner one behind the heel.
- MRI shows a few small ligaments torn. Wait for the bone to heal before deciding next steps.
- The baby is healthy, probably very unclear about what just happened, so after the fall she stopped whining and lay there thinking: what fun new trick was that, daddy.