I've Fallen And I Can't Get Up

[Axel Slingerland]

Remember this?

I am reminded of that often. I've fallen several times in just the last few months. Normally, I can use my "Elevator Chair" as I call it to get up. But the last two times, there's been some wreckage and I needed help. So my son called 911. At first, I thought I broke my foot or something, as I heard (and felt) a loud snap as I went down. But it turned out I did not break it, but it was quite messed up it developed the weirdest bruise I've ever seen, it started on the top of #2 toe, wrapped around my foot and up my leg to just below my knee.


Sorry for the terrible photo... The day after I took that photo, it was worse. Prior to that, I thought Deep Purple was a rock and roll band.

For about the last month if I walked at all, it was using my wheelchair as a walker. But then, three days ago, just as my leg was starting feel normal, I fell again. That was something like the sixth or seventh time I fell since I moved here. So now, my left leg looks I used a cheese grater on it, and my right arm is a mess. Then during the patchup, one of the EMT's, who had been here before, made a comment I am starting to agree with...

"Perhaps it time for you to consider Assisted Living."

I just said "I can't. Who would take care of my son?"

So they gave a couple of phone numbers to call, and if I am "Win the Lottery Lucky", we might be able to get an Assisted Living apartment somewhere. But after 48 days in Vineyard Post Acute in Petaluma, which wasn't bad, but I do not want to rely on their meal plans. Half the time I was eating dry PBJs, because what they made would have made me ill. That's an aftermath of Colon Cancer. Two and a half feet less Colon. The told me that if I could not eat a meal, that I could order a burger, a ham or turkey sandwich or a small pizza. The number of times that I actually got to do that was negligible. No wonder I lost 80 pounds in those 96 days. Most of the time it was a burger, but if not, it was grilled cheese sandwiched that reminded me of my sister's "Gubmint Cheez" sandwiches. The closest thing to that would be Velveeta cheese, a "pasteurized prepared cheese product" not considered to be real cheese by the FDA...

Cross your fingers for me y'all.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Falling is no fun at all when we get older, @Axel Slingerland , and I can relate to how you are feeling insecure about walking. Last summer, I was out working in the yard and garden, and fell several times, just because I tripped on some little root that should never bother anyone, and once I even went head over heels backwards when I was in the gardening chair and leaned the wrong way.
Now, I try to be very careful to be looking before i step anywhere outside, and don’t go where i think I might have trouble, because almost everything is a land mine for me nowadays. Sometimes, I use a walking stick to help balance.

The vibration plate does help my balance, because it make me use those muscles to keep my balance when i am standing on it. since I got it, I do not shuffle quite as bad as I did before, either.
Hoping that you start feeling better soon, and that a safer place for you to live might be forthcoming, too. It sounded like the EMT thought you might be able to have a place for both yourself and your son, so that would be a good thing.

 

[Don Alaska]

Sorry you are having a tough time @Axel Slingerland. I have fallen several times in my life, but the worst involved ladders. I have fallen a few times since my "big fall", but nothing serious. My wife worries constantly about me falling though. Do they have the multi-level assisted living facilities in your area? In those you can begin with almost totally independent living and progress to more dependence as your disabilities worsen. You may have to change buildings, but your address would stay the same.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

For me, that "big fall" was when I was still in the hospital up in Petaluma. It was about a month after I got there, and had finally started the "Aggressive PT" they told me about at the last hospital, that turned out to be about 20 minutes of them strapping my wheelchair to this machine that was a very expensive exercise bike. But I had been up walking a few steps using my chair as a walker. So my Nurse came in one night just as I was about to slide out of bed into the chair to go see if anyone was using that "bike". She told me flat out, "You are not allowed to get out of bed unassisted."

That kind of bugged me. Mr. Free Spirit being tied to a bed for about 75 days at that point. So later, I got up anyway. I took care about it. I used my back scratcher to pull my chair up next to the bed, I made sure the roll bars were secure, etc. But when I got up, I only stayed up about 2 seconds. I fell strait backwards, landed on my back and slammed my head into the wall by the room door. It left a round dent in it that reminded me of the Death Star in Star Wars.

A CNA was all the way at the other end of the hallway and he heard that and came running. The Nurse read me the riot act for getting out of bed without help. I didn't do it again. And when I finally checked out, I wrote in tiny letters in that dent "That's no Moon! It's a Space Station!"