Two of my three brothers live in Arizona. They come to visit once a year or so (sometimes they skip a year.) My third brother lives 120 miles to the south in the same Big City where my children reside. This is the week they are here. It's a lot of fun, but can be a lot of work to entertain and feed a crowd of a dozen people or so. They stay at my parents' house, but I drive in every day to help with the cooking and entertainment duties.
As I mentioned in my last post, my uncle suffered two heart attacks last week. During the first, he basically expired in the ambulance. They revived him, and he had another two days later. He is my father's only sibling, and so my parents have been spending quite a bit of time at the hospital. My uncle is in surgery as I am writing this, having quadruple bypass and perhaps a valve replacement. His five children have come from the corners of the states to be here.
On Friday, my mother was busy getting the house ready for the influx of visitors. Her foot slipped on the carpet while going down the stairs, and she took a tumble. She injured her leg below the knee in the calf muscle area. She refuses to seek medical treatment, and says she thinks she just "pulled the muscle."
So on Saturday, I went to try to help with the cooking and retrieving visitors from the airport and such. When the dinner dishes were done, and everybody was safely relaxing at my parents' home, I decided to head for home. They live in a raised ranch style home with an attached garage. Because the house is raised, you have to go down 4 steps to get into the garage. As I was leaving, I was reaching around the wall to hit the garage door opener button, while also calling over my shoulder for my dad to come and close the door once I was gone. He didn't hear me and said, "What?" as I was beginning my descent down the stairs. As I was pushing the button and calling back to him, my foot missed the step and down I tumbled.
My right leg folded back and slightly to the outside of my body at the knee during the fall. When I hit the concrete floor, the top of my body hit their car and went backwards over my leg. My knee was folded and wedged beneath the front bumper of the car. I hollered for help and everybody came running. They had to back the car out of the garage to get my leg unfolded. When they eventually got me upright, the knee completely gave way, as if there wasn't much holding the joint together.
I spent the night in the ER. X-rays showed nothing broken, but I almost certainly have soft tissue (ligament) damage. The doc put me in a full leg immobilizer and told me to contact an orthopedic surgeon at 8:00 on Tuesday after the holiday.
So, here I am. It seems this injury will take several weeks to resolve itself. There is the definite possibility of surgery, followed by therapy. I had been doing so ding-dong well! I know I'm on a lifetime journey here, and these speed-bumps will happen. My mother commented yesterday that it is like my efforts to lose weight are "cursed or something." I am choosing to believe that because this is a long journey, this is a lesson that I am meant to figure out.
So, now my challenge is to banish that Negative Nellie voice that wants to tell me that since I'm a forced couch potato that it doesn't make any difference what I eat? How can I exercise when I can hardly move? How do I keep the show on the road! And in the meantime, I'm hoping the orthopedic surgeon is a cutie....
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