Forgive me for using such a well known and trademarked phrase. I can remember being in high school, class of 1982, and a lot of my peers found this funny.
Well I'm sure a lot of people of my generation have now learned this can be a very serious matter. All it takes is just a tiny stretch for something just a little outside of our reach and the next thing you know, and you've bent your knees just beyond 90 degrees with no chance to get them straight again. There you are, on the floor with one bad arm, two weak knees, and no hope to roll onto any side where you can even get your knees under you. Normally, if I'm reaching for an object that is on the floor, I know to take special precautions. e.g. I will often slide the object between my feet, stand over it with a walker and gently bend both knees to a 45, and pick up the stupid thing. However, there are times when you reach for something that's not exactly that simple, and so all of those cautionary techniques just don't come up to memory. In this case, I was wiping the front of the bathroom counter, and I reached too far. I knew I was in trouble before I was halfway down, but it was too late.
So I am screaming through the house for anyone to come to my aid. There is no answer. I don't hear any sound that would suggest there are humans in the house. Even my dogs which I had praised in the last post are on the other side of the closed bedroom door. Though there would have been nothing they could do, as I hadn't trained them, and they aren't service dogs.
I do have my phone, and can call and text. I know Laura is out providing transport for one of the kids. In fact, I was in the middle of a text with her as we were working some other details out.
"Is there anyone in the house? I can't get up." I send her. She gives me a rundown of where she believes everyone is. Apparently, Dustin IS in the house but is taking a shower and Theresa has walked Lenore half way to the HOA pool. I doubt what Laura is saying because I hear no water flow.
I resolve at this point that very soon I will talk to each of my neighbors and see if I can get them on a help me list and add to my phone contacts, but it don't help me now.
Laura says it's a little past 3 pm, and Matthew should be on his way home soon.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out how to get my legs under the center of my body mass on my own. It's truly an engineering problem and I should be able to work this out - the trouble is that most of the machines I would use are compromised by pain or other weaknesses. Understand, it's not cancer that really causes me so much grief but it's what it is doing to my body each day that is the problem.
My walker is actually beyond my reach at this point too. Honestly, I was just going to the master bath sink trying to get my urine bottle, because one of the many gifts that this cancer has given me, is incontinence in certain occasions, so I keep a urine bottle because I doubt I can make it from my bed to the toilet in time. I expected to get support just by holding the counter top. BTW this also means my pants were below my knees when I fell, but at this point, I am beyond embarrassment, and will take help from any that can provide it.
I straighten my legs on the floor, and by rolling and alternating butt cheeks I'm able to pull my pants up little by little. This helps, because it's one less distraction to consider. Again I try to figure out which knee is strongest, and that I can bend enough to get under me.
Laura by this time had texted Matt to try to speed up his walk home from McDonalds about 1.5 miles away. Matt does arrive, and once we pick the critical knee, he pulls my right arm until I am kneeling on my right knee. A short pause to get circulation flowing through the back of the knees, and one final push up and I'm on my feet with my walker supporting me. Since I had been texting, I was able to measure the total time I was down. It was only 24 minutes, but when you don't know when help is coming it can seem a lot longer. Also, sometimes people in this circumstance might be in more need. For example, it may be Winter, and the victim might be on a cement floor losing body heat to the ground. There can be other factors where this is more dangerous. Thankfully, it wasn't that bad for me, when all is considered about this fall.
My objective in this post was to try to convey the fears and the pain someone with limited physical capacity goes through when trying to do something as simple as standing up when you're on the floor.
Thankfully, I am losing weight. Officially, I'm 242 pounds now. This is important, because it's hard particularly for untrained care givers to help me up.
When we were living in Arkansas, we had a neighbor who was very big, (larger than me anyway) and Laura had called me over because he could not get up from the floor. He was beyond my strength to lift and at that time in my life, I had been doing 500 pound squats in the gym. I used to have 19.5 inch calves, and 18 inch arms.
Well that's all been going away in recent months, but I think it will be for the better as others will have to help me move more as time goes on. It's sad to see my legs shrivel up like this, but I'm not looking for a mate any more. That part of my life has gone.
But even as I was in my 'prime' in Arkansas, this fellow was very difficult to lift, and all I could think to do was to help him into a kitchen chair so his legs could rest and circulate again. I'm happy to say I was able to get him up into the chair, but it also took some substantial silent prayers.
So all in all, it was a good day, and I thank our Holy Lord for getting me through it.
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