In my case, the nerve that sputtered and spit fire ran down my left leg, all the way to certain toes. It was possible to relieve the pain by bending forward at the waist while supporting myself with a walking stick. The staff I used was hand-carved and highly polished. People who hadn't seen me for a while always commented on it. Not recently, no.
Falls are almost always occasions of profound and uninvited contemplation.
A slip on the ice, a quick pratfall off a child's toy, and here we go again. I faw down, go boom. One lies still, waiting for the pain. Every time I look in the mirror, I see that fall. It is written across my forehead in a pair of scars three and four inches long.