Okay, before you go to town on me, I already know I'm a cliche. What I've done has been done. But hear me out.

Late Sunday afternoon, on the tail end of a beautiful two-hour ride, I hit a wet and slippery patch of pavement at just the wrong moment--I was leaning into a left turn with my torso turned sideways, having just waved and said hello to my neighbour. I wasn't going fast at all, just puttering along, but I went slammo. It was almost as if the gnarly hands of an anti-cycling demon of yore (yore what?) had reached out, taken firm grasp of my front fork and seat stay, and pulled them out from under me.

My hip, shoulder and helmet all got it pretty good (and thank goodness for helmets, by the way). It has now been 28 hours since my fall, and I'm a-hurtin', mostly in my hip and my shoulder, though at times it seems like my whole body is aching. Though I'm not bruised anywhere, just a tiny bit of road rash on my hip, so I figure I must be a tough mother. And Ibuprofen is taking the edge off nicely.

Three questions:

1. I'm a 42-year-old without any health problems whatsoever (though I'm sure saying this means I will soon by targeted for a painful death or late-stage cancer by the faeries who dislike hubris). I once, stupidly, allowed a ton of windows on a cart with metal wheels to roll over my sneakered toes on a factory floor, and endured but a hairline fracture in my big toe, to the disbelief of the doctor. I've been a lifelong calcium devotee and have the bones to show for it, in other words. So how long do you think this pain is going to last? It, erm, should start easing off considerably by the end of the week, shouldn't it?

2. My blammo slamdown happened faster than the Big Bang, so I was totally unprepared. In hindsight, I instinctively might have put my hand down to "cushion" my fall if it had occurred in slower motion. But isn't that how some people break arms, elbows or collar bones? Is there a correct way to fall, and if so, did I inadvertently fall the best way possible, in that my hip and shoulder took the brunt of it almost equally?

3. When I got my appendix out the docs said to get up out of bed and move around as much as possible as early as possible, without overdoing it, of course. So how about with sore muscles and bones from a fall? Is it good to limp around lots, or should I remain completely motionless?