On the last 2 weekends, Peter and I signed up to go with our doctor daughter on 2 fundraising walks; one for Alzheimers’ disease, and one for University Health Network which does a lot of research on brain health. They were both fun – getting new tee-shirts, doing warm-ups with the adults and children, admiring the many different breeds of dogs, adding lots of steps to our fitbits, and holding up traffic as we crossed major intersections.

The routes varied; the Alzheimers walk started at Fort York and went south along the waterfront, and back to the starting point, about 3 kilometers in total. Although it was cool, Lake Ontario was enticing as always. Boats were already sailing and people were sitting on benches with their coffee, enjoying the view. The finishing line greeters went wild with flags and balloons, welcoming about 500 of us back home to burgers and drinks.

This past weekend, the walk was quite different. Approximately ten times as many participants, about 5000 people, of all ages, gathered at Toronto General Hospital’s parking lot, walked to Toronto Western Hospital, and back. It was more fast-paced and crowded, and the walk through Chinatown was like being in another country.

As we got close to the finish line, Peter suggested we take a Spadina Street detour down to see the construction on the Ontario subway line which runs not far from his investment condo. This was probably ill-advised because, as we rushed back to catch up with the other walkers, I tripped and went splat onto Queen St. My shoulder really hurt and I had broken my glasses. Doctor Andrea said we should probably go to emerg. to see what else had broken. Yikes. Like magic, an ambulance appeared and whisked me off to the finish line -Toronto General Hospital.

Now readers, you may be thinking that I was trying to cheat and arrive at the finish line early, but that is definitely not so. I waited with Andrea for about 7 hours, well past the end of the event. Since I am old I needed to have, not only xrays on my shoulder, but also blood tests and a CT scan to check for brain injury. The irony of the walk to get to the hospital was not lost on us.

Looking on the bright side; I picked a good place to fall – with Andrea there, and the hospital nearby. I have a small non-displacement fracture on my shoulder which is likely to heal without issue, a few scrapes on my face and one knee, and glasses broken on only one side. The bad thing is that I am finding out how many things you can’t do with only one arm!

Stay upright everyone and keep all 4 limbs going if you can.

Sue