You’re standing in the line at the grocery when you overhear, “Did you hear about Mildred? She broke her hip.”
Now, normally, my attention would usually be turned to something else, but recently, I fell on the cement floor of the carport and broke my own hip. Now, I pay attention to broken hips.
Hip fractures are the most common broken bone today, requiring about 300,000 hospitalizations a year.
That’s why “Ramblings” has been missing from these pages for a few months, to which I apologize to my readers who have been asking about my whereabouts. I decided that it would also be a good time to take a break from press deadlines.
I normally “fall” several times a day. Now when I say “fall,” I don’t actually mean hitting the ground, but just losing my balance for an instant, where you’re not in complete control — until I can reach out and grab something to regain my steadiness. The only way to learn where the exact limit of your balance lies is to occasionally exceed it and then dial your movements back a degree. You won’t progress if you’re not testing the edges.
The fall
I was taking some of the recycling out to its designated plastic bin when I lost my balance and the cement floor came rushing up.
I laid on the slab at the edge of the carport and felt sprinkles of the rain that were just beginning to fall. I thought, “I can’t stay here,” and painfully pulled myself upright using a carport roof-support pole and the side of a car that was parked nearby. The pain was severe. I remembered my cell phone in my pocket and called the Lady Marjorie inside.
“What?” she queried.
“Help,” I moaned, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.... I’m serious, I’m really in pain. Bring the crutches.”
We got as far as the front steps and a neighbor, who is a nurse, came out to see what the commotion was. She immediately advised calling 911.
The highly efficient Magnolia station of the Seattle Fire Department rolled their fire engine, and they arrived almost instantaneously. After a quick triage, they decided I wasn’t worthy of high-tech Medic One (as I had been two months earlier, with a previous heart attack) and a less-intense emergency ambulance appeared within minutes.
Per request, they dropped me at Northwest Hospital, the location of all of my other physicians of record.
From Emergency, I went to X-ray and, “Yes, you’ve broken your hip.”
I was wedged into an unmoving position with pillows and made as comfortable as possible while awaiting the upcoming surgery. I now had a further disability on top of my previous disabilities.
Hanging on each of the three walls of my hospital room that I could see (I couldn’t get twisted around to see the wall behind me) were signs that listed “Hip Precautions”: Don’t cross legs. Keep a 90-degree angle or more at waist. Keep toes pointed out.
Each time a nurse entered the room, they would quiz me to recite the Hip Precautions.
Learning to walk…again
For the third time, I was going to need to learn how to walk.
The first time was with the aid of my mother’s guiding hand.
The second time was some 30 years later, when the PTs at Harborview first got me out of a wheelchair. There, between some waist-high parallel bars, I took my first steps in an effort that some thought would forever be beyond my capabilities.
Now, at Northwest Hospital, I was being challenged the third time with getting out of a wheelchair and learning to walk again.
The day after my broken hip was repaired with a trick, titainium ball joint, I was wheeled into the Physical Therapy room, and one of the PTs rolled me up to one of the low, padded therapy tables, and we started again.
The therapy tables are about the size of a king-size bed, but it’s hardly any sleep that you’ll do on them.
The therapists start you with repetitions of simple leg exercises: pointing your toes, moving your injured leg to the side or raising your knee while sliding your foot along the table toward you, etc. Each visit with the PTs repeats the exercises and gets a little more difficult.
The bench exercises then get additional physical work added to them. Short trials with a walker of only 10 feet in length become walks to the other side of the room, and then across the room and back.
It isn’t long before you are out in the halls of the hospital, walking along with a walker and a PT, piling up distances.
You usually end up thinking, when you’re back in bed for the night, “Well, I couldn’t have done that yesterday.”
I was also seeing an Occupational Therapist (OT) in the afternoon, and she’d get a crack at me with her own specialized exercises. The primary goal of the OT is to get you (the patient) independent.
The difference between PT and OT was explained to me years ago at Harborview: “OTs just get to yell at you,” I was told. “PTs can come right out and whack you when you mess up.”
That’s not true: Your therapists and nurses are the best friends a patient has got. They’re constantly watching over you and teaching you how to regain or reprogram, control over your own uncooperative body. They get you back to being operational again.
Back on his feet
I was in Northwest for a total of three weeks and then discharged, with almost-daily home visits from home-service PT.
Once again, with the aid of my crutches, I’m back to regularly taking walks. So keep your eyes open in the Village — you never know where or when you’ll see me walking by again.
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