THURSDAY MAY 31, 2007 11:05 AM EDT
After The Office star Jenna Fischer at an NBC bash two weeks ago, it was a TV doctor who provided the best medicine.
"Zach Braff was at the party when I fell," Fischer tells . "And bless his heart, the next day he sent a big tray of cupcakes to my hotel.
In those first few days, all my husband and I did for pleasure was watch a Larry Sanders DVD and eat those cupcakes."
The actress, 33, fractured four vertebrae during a party for advertisers at New York City hot spot Buddakan, which quickly put a damper on her summer plans. "It's one of my favorite parts of the year," she says.
"My vacation starts then. I was ready for a lovely break no pun intended."
She wasn't even planning to stay out late: "I was going to do one dance and then get out of there," she says.
"The dance floor was down a long set of marble stairs. I linked arms with my friend and just missed a step. All I know is I was suddenly not on the ground anymore.
My legs flipped out from underneath me, and while I was in the air, I had the thought, 'This isn't going to end well.' "
She landed on the stairs and, she says, the pain "was consuming and immediate. I've never felt anything like it.
I was horribly nauseous and dizzy."
At the hospital, doctors discovered she had fractured four vertebrae in her back and torn a ligament in her elbow. "The doctor said, 'The good news is, you have no spinal cord damage,' " Fischer tells the newspaper.
Costar Angela Kinsey, she says, "was with me for over 24 hours taking care of me." Steve Carell sent flowers with a funny note, she tells the paper; Rainn Wilson called and John Krasinski wrote a "lovely e-mail."
While she's still in some pain "sleeping is probably the most uncomfortable thing right now.
I just can't get comfortable" she's been taking half-hour walks in Central Park to regain her mobility. "I'm almost at the point where I can bend over," she says. "I really have a desire to wash my feet.
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Doctors, she says, expect a full recovery in "about 12 weeks.
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