Richardson, wife of Liam Neeson and daughter of Vanessa Redgrave, fell during a lesson on a beginner's ski slope in Quebec. She hit her head. After falling, she got up, walked around, talked to people and declined treatment.

I'm sure everyone, including Richardson, thought she was O.K. They all probably said, "She just fell." But two days later, she was dead from a blood clot that developed between the brain and the skull.

I took a fall myself last year and hit my head. I was carrying groceries into the house when a paper bag began to rip. Grabbing to support it, I lost my balance and fell flat on my face on the concrete sidewalk. I was stunned and dazed. But by the time my husband came out of the garage and around to the front door, I was standing.

I told him I'd fallen. He asked if I was O.K. "Yeah," I said. "I just hit my head." And we went inside.

Two weeks later, I realized I might have had a concussion from that fall. Immediately after I'd fallen, I'd had a headache. My vision had been slightly blurred. And only in retrospect was I able to assess how fuzzy my thinking had been all that week. So fuzzy that I hadn't even thought to go to the doctor.

I was very lucky and I knew it. Many years ago, while a student, I worked part time in a hospital where I'd seen a young man die from a situation similar to Natasha Richardson's. That day, a doctor told me sadly that too many people think a person that gets up and walks around after a fall is O.K.

Every blow to the head, no matter how seemingly insignificant, and especially in children, he told me, must be checked out by a doctor to be absolutely certain there is no internal bleeding. "Never assume "just" a bump on the head," that doctor told me. "That word, "just." kills people."

I think the word "just" killed Natasha Richardson. That word "just" kills a lot of people. When I was injured in a car accident and wound up as a chronic pain patient, I heard that word, "just", over and over.

In the emergency room, a doctor told me, "You're lucky. It's just a bump on the head. You could have been killed."

Later, in my family doctor's office, I heard, "You're lucky it's just soft tissue damage. You could have broken a lot of bones."

At a specialists, I heard, "You can't possibly be in that much pain. It's just pulled muscles."

Time and time again, my complaints and symptoms were declared insignificant with one wave of the word "just."

In my case, it wasn't "just" a bump on the head. I had a blood clot on my brain that could have killed me. It wasn't "just" soft tissue damage and pulled muscles. I had sprained hands, ruptured disks, torn ligaments and a host of other injuries. Because they went untreated, I spent years in disabling pain.

There are so many dangers for pain patients, like risks of drug addiction and overdose, risks associated with hospitals and surgery, risk of misdiagnosis, but perhaps the highest potential for risk comes from one simple little word. That word is "just," Don't say that word. Don't let others say it to you. Check things out. Get second opinions. And remember that just being able to walk and talk isn't necessarily the measure of perfect health.

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Bonnie Boots publishes Pain Health News to provide information, motivation and understanding to people living with chronic pain. To keep in touch with her, use the subscribe form in the upper right corner.

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