You Have A Husband, Use It

#Health #Aging

My poor wife has fallen so many times in the past six years that we have lost count. I think it’s somewhere between 14 and 18 times, some accompanied by broken bones, but every one adding to her pain and disability.

It started at a garden place. I had stayed in the car on a phone call, and she had walked to the main building. A curbed sidewalk was the same color as the parking lot; she didn’t notice the curb. It was a bad fall, bad enough for an ambulance ride. Nothing broken that time, but enough muscle strain to make her unstable. So, a few months later, down she went in a supermarket while I was at work. Was that when she broke her thumb? I can’t remember now, but the falls continued at home every few months, slowly increasing in frequency. There was a bad one in our bedroom with a lot of bleeding. I was driving home, but was a half hour out. I told her to call an ambulance; by the time I got home they were loading her in.

And then more. I quit work so I could be home to care for her. A broken arm, then a wrist fracture, then six broken ribs after that. That was the worst — a few weeks in a care home, months of new pain.

There was a funny one. Well, we laughed about it later. She was standing a few feet from me reading something on her phone. She fell asleep and crumpled to the floor. That scared me; I thought her hip had given out. No, just exhausted.

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