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Coming home from the emergency room, with my knee swelled up like a basketball, felt like aging 10 years overnight. I could hardly walk, and the steps I managed to make with the injured stiff leg, like Chester on Gunsmoke, made me feel like an old man. I’m 78 going on 90. Fortunately I had my deceased brother’s cane to use, but it is hardly adequate. I should be using his walker, the green tennis ball covers on the feet reminding me of slippers and the slippery fall I took. I noticed a huge old-man liver spot on the back of my hand where I had evidently smacked it going down. Ugh. People point at it and ask, "What’s that?"
As you may or may not recall, I had a major fall when our toilet overflowed, flooding a couple of rooms in our house. I slipped in the water, landed flat on my back, like a turtle, and was treated to an ambulance ride to the emergency room. X-rays revealed no broken bones, but man did my knee hurt. I was released from ER with instructions to see my primary care physician. My PCP sent me to an orthopedist, who put my knee in a brace, and told me to come back in two weeks. That’s where I am now--my leg in a brace and my ego in a sling.
It is what it is. Seven days after the fall, on Aug. 28, with the Sturgeon Full Moon in eclipse, Ginnie turned 75. What a grand celebration! We had big plans--horseback riding in Shimek State Forest, and spending the night in a cabin on Lake Sugema at Keosauqua. But with my swollen knee, there was no way I could grip a saddle, so I canceled the horseback riding. And with my sore ribs and shoulder, sleeping in a strange bed or cot, didn’t sound like much fun. We stayed home. Ginnie opened her gifts of a Sophie Cunningham tee-shirt, with Sophie pointing her long finger at me, the guilty party, and a "Fly Free Jackie" cap, reminding us to fly like an eagle.
Fat chance of that. I couldn’t even ride my indoor exercise bike, that I had been doing as of late, to lose weight. I had been riding 20 miles a day. And now I couldn’t even swing my leg over the seat. Bummer.
But it gave me time to read Barbara Kingsolver’s "Poisonwood Bible" and be thankful that I wasn’t being pursued by a wave of ants in the African Congo. I’m now onto Virginia Evans’ "The Correspondent" and thinking of performing some of that old time therapy of letter writing. Shazam!
I fall asleep reading. Because of my sore ribs and my knee in a brace, I can’t sleep on my side. When I sleep on my back, I quit breathing from sleep apnea. I’ll be groaning and Ginnie will punch me in my sore ribs to wake me up. It wakes me up all right! Life has taken on new meaning on the Empty Nest Farm.
But I have high hopes. This is just a bump in the road. When the knee brace comes off in two weeks, the orthopedist will wave his magic reflex hammer and pronounce me healed. No surgery needed, and I can un-age myself back from 90 to 78, climb on the exercise bike, and maybe even go horseback riding. At 78, I ain’t ready to ride off into the sunset just yet. Yee ha!
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Have a good story? Call or text Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant at 319-217-0526 or email him at curtswarm@yahoo.com. Curt is available for public speaking.