The sudden force of falling onto the side of the hotel bathtub in Paris literally took my breath away – and cracked three ribs, one in multiple places.

I laugh about it now, but the fall nearly two years ago still makes me leery of hotel showers. I took bird baths for five days on a stop in Stuttgart last year because my room had a shower that was a mirror image of the one in Paris. I dubbed it the “death trap.”

All I was doing on my fourth day in Paris was reaching out of the shower for a bar of soap I left on the sink. It happened so quickly, but I must have slid on shampoo suds. After running my fingers over my side several times to make sure nothing seemed out of line – and somehow managing to get out of the tub – I did a quick search on my smartphone for advice from well-known healthcare organizations.

Turns out, there isn’t much to be done. Medication can help control pain while breathing, but doctors don’t wrap cracked ribs anymore. They do warn that it’s possible for a fractured rib to puncture a lung.

That last bit caused me to spend days taking deep breaths around the Louvre, Versailles, Montmartre and other sites to check if I still could. Wine therapy wasn’t enough to dull the pain the first day, so the next morning I went to a pharmacy for help. I waited until I was home to see a doctor and get X-rays, but I figured out where the nearest hospital to my hotel was just in case.

So, I offer this travel advice:

• Pack a bath mat. I’m looking for a thin one for my next trip to Italy even though I only take a backpack on trips.
• Take a smartphone and charger. Make arrangements with your cellphone carrier to have an international data plan while traveling abroad.
• Install a translator app for foreign travel. It will help explain what happened to a pharmacist or physician, as well as come in handy on other occasions.
• Carry your health insurance card. If you’re really anxious, call your insurer’s customer service to find out what to do if you are injured in the area where you plan to travel.
• Make sure you have everything you need in the shower before turning on the water. Enough said.