Gravity and I Are at War, and It’s Three to a Zillion in My Favor

Five years ago, gravity won the battle when I tripped stepping off a curb and broke both ankles. Both ankles at the same time. First one, as it shifted sideways over the curb, then the other as I pitched forward and went down.

Prior to breaking both ankles, I had never broken a bone. I haven’t broken one since.

Since I was old(er) when this happened, I was immediately considered a fall risk, and handled with velvet gloves. More or less. Physical therapy to learn to walk again, didn’t feel like being handled with velvet gloves. I felt like a toddler learning to walk, but with further to fall this time. There are no words to describe the feeling of telling your feet what to do and having them remain clueless.

After a fall when you are a certain age, doctors and nurses ask every visit, “Have you fallen in the past year?” They never asked me when I was young. I guess we’re expected to fall from toddlerhood through middle age, and then we have to stop. What happens if I answer honestly when the docs ask? I don’t know. I don’t answer honestly. I’m afraid to find out.

As a child, I was active when not reading. When I was active, there were numerous falls from bicycles, trees, and playground equipment. I remember scabby knees that oozed blood until healed, and the bright red mercurochrome mother kept applied to the wounds, which we called “monkey blood” for no discernible reason.

One of these falls was the first time gravity beat me. I leapt backwards off a metal teeter-totter, also for no discernible reason, and scraped my knee on the rusty metal. My parents were good about getting us every shot and vaccine that came out, but I was around ten years old, and apparently my tetanus shot had lost its punch. It and my knee were TKOed by tetanus bacteria.

As usual, we had slathered it with mercurochrome, and I went to school the next day. Where my knee grew and grew, turned an ominous purple, and lost the ability to bend and unbend. To say I was in excruciating pain doesn’t begin to describe the situation. Mom was called, we raced to the doctor, who lanced and drained my knee while my mother tried to keep from fainting, and I kept trying to look.

I spent the next month on the couch with my knee wrapped in alternating cold compresses and a heating pad. Four weeks later I went back to school on crutches. You can be sure I never missed another tetanus shot.

The experience prepared me to a degree for the three months it took to recover from the broken ankles, over half a century later. Losing the use of one leg, and learning to use crutches as a child, wasn’t quite the feat learning to walk all over again was. Plus learning to use first a wheelchair, and then a walker before learning to walk on my own again. After practicing wheeling my chair up ramps, I have massive respect for those who accomplish this daily and for life.

I don’t remember doing anything remarkable after recovering from tetanus when I was in fourth grade. I wasn’t an athlete or a regular dancer until I was grown. But I’m sure I was back climbing trees in record time, because trees are where I hid to read undisturbed.

Four months after breaking both ankles and learning to walk again as if I had never known how, I went to Cuba for a Salsa dancing conference. I taught those ankles who is in charge. Besides, they are mostly titanium now, so dancing Salsa hours a day for five days wore the rest of me out, but not my ankles.

Speaking of falling, which we are, I fell again three days ago. Not unlike numerous other falls I’ve taken by falling sideways off my sandals while walking, except this time I fell on a flat, straight, sidewalk. I did this impressive feat in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where flat straight walking areas are the exception, not the rule.

I’m not embarrassed when I fall on rocky ground, especially on inclines, of which Santa Fe is full. We’re surrounded by mountains, after all, and I hike regularly. Miraculously, I’m never seriously hurt, either. The broken ankles fall being a fluke. Osteopenia be damned.

The flat sidewalk fall, however, damaged either my left rib cage, or some muscle or organ underneath. Sleeping is nearly impossible, as sleeping all night on my right side makes the right side of my neck hurt. Sleeping on my back allows the cats a wide open playing field — my body. The one with the sore ribs.

Just to be extra helpful, my young, large Ginger kitty chose last night to jump to the top of my dresser, where a mirror leans against the wall, held in place by my jewelry box, and surrounded by a heavy vase and a fragile roku pot. Gravity won. They all survived, including the cat, but the mirror and the heavy vase crashed to the floor, miraculously without breaking.

I needed the sleep that ribs and cat denied me

What did break was my nervous system, being awakened by loud crashes at O’dark thirty, jumping out of bed with aforementioned sore ribs, and cursing loudly at a certain orange cat. I knew she did it, because Trixie, the torty, sleeps pushed as close against me as she can get. Another reason not to sleep on my left side while in pain.

If you think I let sore ribs stop me, you are mistaken. Remember the Salsa dancing? After conferring with my friend who is a nurse practitioner, icing every fifteen minutes for fifteen minutes, and popping ibuprofen, I spent the rest of the day buying a coffee table and a pair of pants, which required acrobatic positions without yelling in pain — there was some whimpering — and then attending a Market Fair, and a jazz club.

I needed the sleep that ribs and cat denied me.

Still, today I am writing, which doesn’t impact the ribs too much, but also vacuuming to prepare the living room for the new coffee table. How I will get it out of my car is anybody’s guess. I had help putting it in, but I live alone. The cats are no help.

Getting back to climbing trees after a bum knee, and dancing Salsa on broken ankles, explains why I spent yesterday and today pretending my ribs don’t hurt, so as to continue on my merry way. Don’t tell gravity, but apparently you have to cut my legs out from under me to keep me down.

Three negative outcomes to falls aren’t a lot compared to all the falls, intentional and unintentional, I’ve taken throughout my life. Intentional because I practiced Aikido for twenty years, and falling is at least half the practice. Unintentional from bicycles, trees, playground equipment, and now flat sidewalks since I insist on wearing sandals on walks.

I’m guessing sandals, even ones without heels, is a step too far for defying gravity. Since I refuse to let gravity win, there better be some really cute walking shoes out there. If you know of some, send me the information. I can’t promise to wear them in public if they aren’t cute enough, but maybe I’ll at least take walks in them.

No flat sidewalk will defeat me.

. . .

Sometimes I have nightmares where I seem to wake up and there’s no coffee. Falling may or may not be involved. Save me by buying me a coffee. https://ko-fi.com/carolsantafe

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This post was previously published on New Choices.

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