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August 29, 2006

So I tumbled into the flowerbed...

Just as I stepped out onto my front steps, I had a premonition of chaos, of falling,

Next thing I knew I was in the air, pirouetting. I landed on my side, my right leg bouncing off a step, and in slow motion I saw a geranium in a clay pot falling over. I grabbed for it as I kept rolling left off the step that had broken my fall, tumbling into the flowerbed a couple of feet below.

Still reaching up for the falling geranium, I landed on the small of my curved back and kept moving, as though my back were the rungs of a rocking chair. (Curling to save the plant probably saved my back from landing flat -- there's not even a bruise there.)

But my calf muscle has a football injury, as though I were tackled by the step. It hurts to put weight on the right side of my foot, and it's impossible to get up from a chair without arms (such as a toilet) without pain.

It's RICE for me now -- Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation.

I'm using a cane I found tucked away in the house's only closet when I moved in. It's a crooked crook, hand-carved by an earlier resident, but I can't quite get the rhythm of distributing my weight to this "third leg," so I wince regularly.

Sitting in the dirt, the first thing I did after determining that nothing seemed broken was to repot the geranium.

Posted by Sheila Lennon at 8:42 AM | Permalink

Comments

Years of fighting sciatica have taught me the proper way to use a cane (at least for me). Try putting the cane on tghe opposite side of your body from the injury.

Posted by: Doug Alder on August 29, 2006 5:28 PM

(Slapping forehead) Of course! Thanks, Doug.

That works better for distributing the load, but it's less natural to use it in my left hand.

Posted by: Sheila on August 30, 2006 1:29 AM

Yup. I remember that from my hamstring tear - cane goes on the other side.

Ouch! Take care. And, the geranium says, "thanks!".

Posted by: donna on August 30, 2006 3:18 AM