Early Saturday May 29 I got out of bed to go urinate. Couple of seconds later I had fallen on my right side on the floor between the cedar chest and the dresser hoping not but knowing that I had broken a hip. As long as full body weight was on that leg and hip the pain was somewhat abated but any effort to change positions was excruciating. Worst of all I couldn't rouse Kathy by yelling. I still had to pee, badly. My dirty underwear hamper was in arms reach so I turned it over, dragged the contents out into a pile on the floor and used that instead of the carpet. It took about 30 minutes to stir Kathy to call 911. (She is totally deaf in one ear and habitually sleeps with her good ear to the pillow.)
EMT's arrived to find a 6'8" man in a tight spot in a bedroom with a door at an odd angle to a narrow hallway, with no way to get a gurney anywhere close. Out comes a canvas sling. I screamed when they rolled me onto the sling. I screamed louder as they dragged me out of the bedroom, around the tight corner and down the hall into the den where gurney was waiting. My last scream was for the transfer to the gurney, although the ambulance ride was terrible, too.
Broken femur, up close to the hip socket. Hey, if you've got to break something why not the biggest bone in your body? Surgery to install a nail (surgeon's terminology) on Monday morning. After 21 days of physical and occupational therapy in a nursing home/rehab facility with barely edible food, noisy hallways at night, but some excellent, dedicated rehab people, I am back home, walking with pain on a walker and having very painfully climbed the 11 stairsteps from the garage into the house with the able help of my son and grandson. Thank God for family. So I am a home bound prisoner with home rehab visits until further notice. Kathy has been absolutely great throughout all this. Right now my primary goal is to be able to leave the house by July 11 for some sort of commemoration of our 50th anniversary, even if only to limp to a restaurant on my walker and eat out.
Life is good, God is good, even if life hurts a lot sometime.
EMT's arrived to find a 6'8" man in a tight spot in a bedroom with a door at an odd angle to a narrow hallway, with no way to get a gurney anywhere close. Out comes a canvas sling. I screamed when they rolled me onto the sling. I screamed louder as they dragged me out of the bedroom, around the tight corner and down the hall into the den where gurney was waiting. My last scream was for the transfer to the gurney, although the ambulance ride was terrible, too.
Broken femur, up close to the hip socket. Hey, if you've got to break something why not the biggest bone in your body? Surgery to install a nail (surgeon's terminology) on Monday morning. After 21 days of physical and occupational therapy in a nursing home/rehab facility with barely edible food, noisy hallways at night, but some excellent, dedicated rehab people, I am back home, walking with pain on a walker and having very painfully climbed the 11 stairsteps from the garage into the house with the able help of my son and grandson. Thank God for family. So I am a home bound prisoner with home rehab visits until further notice. Kathy has been absolutely great throughout all this. Right now my primary goal is to be able to leave the house by July 11 for some sort of commemoration of our 50th anniversary, even if only to limp to a restaurant on my walker and eat out.
Life is good, God is good, even if life hurts a lot sometime.
