An unfortunate step sent me hurtling to the pavement yesterday as I tripped in a pothole. There were unfortunate consequences. I fell hard, landed on my two hands and broke one wrist badly.!

A good Samaritan saw me fall, helped me up, called an ambulance, got me an ice pack from a caffetteria and waited with me for the ambulance. It took 20 mins.

Thank you most sincerely to Leonardo who would accept no payment but was extremely kind and thoughtful!

I was delivered over Florence’s VERY BUMPY ROADS (you never realize it in a taxi with good springs, but with a sore limb and a van that has seen many days in service, you notice it all!) to the Pronto Soccorso at Santa Maria Nuova, the city’s oldest hospital founded in 1288 by a wealthy Florentine merchant, Leo de Ricovero Portinari (d. 1289). Coincidentally, it was his daughter, Beatrice, who was the unwitting muse for Dante’s Divine Comedy. Ah, Florence!

The naked eye could see things inside my arm were messed up and a set of Xrays revealed all the damages. I was told that I’d be put under and they would try to manipulate my shattered bones into place and put on a cast.

Then a 2nd xray was taken to see if the setting was adequate.

I was warned that surgery would likely be necessary because it was a bad break.

Very luckily for me the on-call orthopedic surgeon was talented and got the bones placed in order manually.

They took a second set of Xrays and said I was in good shape. I return to the hospital in a week for Xrays yo double check setting of bones.

On this first morning of my new normal I’m busy cancelling spectacular events I had planned for the entire month of October in Rome. So sorry to have to do it.

Bear with me, dear reader, as I accustom myself to to this new way of life for a couple of months. I suspect there will be many fewer blog posts, following my record year of daily blogs so far in 2026!