Flashback City!

[Danaus plexippus]

I'm not going to group T this week. The air is too bad. My lungs are loaded with scar tissue from 9/11. Last week on the way to therapy, I tripped over a subway grate that was raised one inch above the level of the sidewalk. I made a five point landing on the grate, lacerating both knees, badly bruising both hands and hitting my chin so hard, my whole head hurt. Pain shot down my neck shoulders and arms. My ears were ringing and everything went white and sparkly.

I lay there across the street from the WTC as rush hour pedestrian traffic sped past me. I almost started to cry. My dearest girlfriend was trampled so badly on 9/11 she was unable to walk for six months. I could hear a woman's voice asking "Are you alright?" I lifted myself up. I don't remember if I answered her, but I heard her say "She ok."

I thought of the commercial of the old woman who had fallen and could not get up and wondered if that would be me soon. The last time I was in the hospital, the attendant fastened a band around my wrist that said "FALL RISK." When I got to Belleview, I cleaned my knees and washed the blood off my pants. A nurse taped gauze on the cuts that were still bleeding and gave me some Band-Aids. At group therapy, two other ladies said they had also recently fallen. Our group T is young and advised us to walk with a cane. My physical therapist advised against this.

I used to be so fearless, I'd stride across dripping wet moss covered logs over ausable chasms. Now I feel so fragile I'm afraid to walk on the sidewalk. I afraid of losing my independence and winding up in a nursing home like my dearly departed sister. I was going to put this on my "Disappointing a Friend" thread, but decided it was a whole new topic. Anyone else afraid of losing their independence and being at the mercy of nurse Ratchet?

[Three Roses]

Yes! Some days are worse than others. Sometimes I feel like two different people are "driving" and I do clumsy things.

Did you get checked for a concussion? The white, sparkly description sounds like one.

Sometimes I wonder if my body's rebelling on purpose....

[Danaus plexippus]

No, that was because of the stenosis of my cervical vertebrae getting bent backwards and pinching my spinal cord when my chin hit the grate.

[Three Roses]

Ouch