Avoiding domino effect injuries

First a friend cancelled a meeting telling me his mother was unwell, then that he had a sports injury.

I first wondered

1 Was he making a polite excuse. I dismissed that. I think he is more direct. Certainly not shy in emails. And a girlfriend has also cancelled not knowing anything about anybody else's problems. A whole week of stresses.

Could it be the weather or the international situation? Am I seeking links when none is there? Some accidents happen independently. By chance a few fall into clusters.

However, I think we can see occasions when one illness or accident leads to another.

2 One stress has made him prone to another. Domino effect.

I've noticed that illness and accidents in families and friends seems to run around.

Two common accidents:

1 An elderly person is ill. Pills are not locked in cupboard but on kitchen table or bedside. Then their grandchild is hospitalised because of eating pills.

2 A car breaks down on the motorway. The driver, passenger, or person helping is struck by another vehicle.

This might be because other drivers don't realise the stranded car is stationery and hit it.

Or that the person injured is concentrating on the real problem, the breakdown, not on potential problems of other accidents.

So why are we accident prone? Stress? Doing too much? Rushing too fast? Lack of sleep? Anxiety about another problem causing a second due to lack of due care and attention?

I'm the ENFP type on the personality typing analysis, which is why I don't like driving. (I drove to Cornwall with a friend. But since then having had a traffic accident I avoid driving as much as possible.) I'm a typical academic. My mind is on the past and future, not on the present. I reckon you are a more practical type.

A friend of mine is injured. I get a minor injury.

Long ago my baby was underweight. My father carried upstairs a heavy weighing machine sent by NHS. My father was hospitalised with back trouble. My mother-in-law ended up in the same hospital with another problem.

I seem to have 'come out in sympathy' with a friend like husbands who get false pregnancies and aches and pains when their partners are pregnant. He was injured. I rushed about anxiously, not looking where I was going. I got injured.

So when others are ill or injured, take extra care of the health of yourself and the rest of your family. You think thing can't get any worse? They can. It just teaches you that the first problem was not the worst or only thing which could happen to you.

Take care.