I'd fallen & could not get up -- for 9 hours! Part I

 

1,124 words

It began to dawn on me the fourth time the EMTs said no, they meant business: they were not going to allow me to drive the ambulance.

A more intuitive patient would have sensed this when he realized they’d strapped him to a gurney the way guards secured ol’ Doc Lechter when he asked if they had a spare can of fava beans.

It was 6:30 a.m. last Wednesday and we were on our way to the Latrobe hospital emergency room where they would scratch their heads wondering what the hell I was doing there.

There was no trauma. No wound. I was coherent and joking.

Why all the fuss?

I’d fallen and could not get up.

For 9 hours.

I’d become the punchline to a preposterous commercial me and the boys would ruthlessly mock back before we’d ever dreamed our bodies would eventually betray us.

A nurse asked how far I’d fallen.

I told her 25 feet.

“Twenty-five feet! How do you explain not a scratch on you?”

“It wasn’t all at once,” I said. “The first fall was about 3 feet. Then I fell about a foot once every 30 minutes or so for the next 8 hours.

See, I have Parkinson’s Disease. Was diagnosed in ’18.

I was symptom-free for so long I believe my friends suspected I’d made the whole thing up because they know I crave attention.

But lately, in the last 6 months, the progressive neurological disorder has begun to assert itself. This is mostly in immobility and balance issues.

I now appear to be drunk all the time, which in public gives you all the baggage of being drunk with none of the folly or fun. 

It’s a frustrating development. We can be wrapping things up after a nice meal and my table mates get up and head for the door and I remain frozen there, my legs feeling as if they’re immersed in wet cement. They won’t budge.

I’ve tried distracting thought. I’ve tried hyper-focused thought. And I’ve tried cartoon-balloon inspiration.

In my head I’ll imagine myself springing into crisp motion as I shout, “Ninja!” “Action!” Or my personal favorite, “Polamalu!”

None of it works.

Worse is the balance betrayals. Because a man sitting frozen can be dismissed as a garden variety weirdo and we’re all used to dealing daily with them.

But a lurching, off balance man is a menace to all he beholds. Caught in the throes of gravity he might reach out for a stabilizing shoulder and seize, instead, a bystander’s innocent breast and that right there tears at the fabric of society.

At my first momentous fall, there wasn’t a shoulder or breast in sight. 

I’d stepped outside to look up at the full moon from just off our front porch. I’d had not a drop of alcohol. But sobriety will never factor into my need for whimsy.

Maybe too much whimsy makes one woozy because down I went, straight over on my back. Truly, I was lucky I didn’t break my neck.

I landed face up surrounded by flowers. Lying there, staring straight up at the stars, festooned with  flowers, prospects dim, I wondered, “If six pals show up toting a pine box, should I just climb on in?”

I lay there for an hour, my body refusing to obey my commands. It’s a scene rich in irony.

My whole life no one has ever been able to tell me what to do. Now, here I am, 62, and I’m no longer capable of telling myself what to do.

I finally wound up calling my wife, who was inside about 50 feet away. 

Many of you might be wondering why I didn’t summon her sooner.

Well, I’ll thank you to mind your own goddamned business, but since you asked, whether it was out of vanity or instinctual self-preservation I could not make that call.

I’ve read that being married to anyone with Parkinson’s can strain even storybook unions.

Our marriage is already freighted with challenges that come from being wed 57 years.

Now some of you may be wondering how a 62-year-old man can be married 57 years. Was I 5 when I walked down the aisle?

I was not. No, I calculate married time differently than calendar time.

See, for long stretches, Val and I have both worked from home. We lunched together, saw movies and lavished our daughters with our full attention.

I know some men who say they’ve been married 50 years who in total haven’t spent 4 together.

She works nights. He drives truck. They never see one another.

Then there’s this: by any standard fiscal measure, my entire career has been an enormous bust, a huge strain on a relationship.

I don’t look at it that way. If I did I’d probably throw myself in front of speeding locomotive. 

But I press on convinced that one day my ship is bound to come in.

Yet, it’s looking more and more likely that when my ship does come in, it won’t be some grand yacht, it’ll just be a little dinghy.

That’s bound to disappoint.

See, I already have a little dinghy. She’s seen my little dinghy. Played with it even.

She now has no interest in yet another little dinghy. 

And as my decrepitude accelerates, I can tell there are moments she wishes she could unsee, a fashionable term for anyone who wants to erase an image from their mind.

Moments like me being unable to pull a sweater over my head or, say, elevate myself out of a moonlit flower patch.

I fear she’s going to unsee so much of my life, I’ll cease to exist.

So eventually I made the call.

I chose to consider the flower patch fall as a fluke, something I could avoid if I became more careful about my steps.

About 8 weeks later, came the unassuming fall that would lead to radical reconsideration.

The next fall might do more than embarrass.

The next fall could kill me. 

This one happened when I was home  all alone. My daughters were in Pittsburgh and Kent, Ohio.

Val was in Florida tending to her aged father in the hospice phase of his mortal conclusions.

We live in the woods. Our seclusions impenetrable.

It was just me and the stupid dog, the 15-year-old Chihuahua/terrier mix with the bladder control issues.

He was right there at the door. I tripped right over him. I fell, slid really, to my knees.

It was the last time I’d be even semi-verticle for the next 9 hours.

I’d fallen and could not get up.

And the worst night of my life had just begun.

(Look for Part 2 Monday at www.EightDaysToAmish.com. And I’ll be signing books Saturday at the Greensburg Barnes & Noble from 2 to 4 pm.)

Cheer up fellow Earthlings! We're the best damn planet in the solar system

 We’re so disposed to reveling in our petty nationalist rivalries, we’re failing to see the big picture: We’re light years ahead of every other planet in every quality of life category there is.

Enjoy ice cream? Then don’t try and eat any on Mercury, the nearest planet to the Sun. It’s 810-degrees there, a temperature which incinerates ice cream in less time than it takes to get the cone near your nose.

Try this: Think of Planet Earth the way an enterprising real estate agent would. We’re not some shabby little planet. We’re No. 1 in our entire solar system!

(Note a topic for another day: Although our home solar system is 4.06 billion years old, it remains unnamed)

Looking for good schools? Earth has the best schools.

Recreational opportunities? They estimate you could comfortably fit 1,381 Earths inside one Jupiter, yet there’s not one pickleball court on the whole Big Gassy.

Best place to raise kids? Best pizza? Best nightlife? Best sunrise? Diverse worship?

Earth! Earth! Earth!

Imagine the rout if we ever organize a planetary Olympics. We’d swamp the medal platforms.                                                               

So do not surrender to the doomsayers who complain Earth is over-populated, polluted, war-torn and on-track to implode by, oh, lunchtime tomorrow. Instead focus on the good and join me in coming up with a promotional slogan that attract interested galactic tourists and potential home buyers.

“Come and enjoy the best damn planet in the solar system! (Earth not responsible for life-threatening fluctuations in inhabitability minimums)

Another Biblical typo: It should be "crossifaction," not "crucifixion"

In my maniacal quest to rid the world of historical typos I’ve found another and it too is Biblical. You might remember the last one was Yeaster instead of Easter.

I did this based on the grounds that no one’s ever heard of an Easter. There is ni such thing. But yeast is a common kitchen ingredient widely used to make things — things like bread/slain Saviors —rise. The next one is obvious, but clearly careless:

Crucifixion ought to be crossifaction.

Let’s break it down. The first point substantiates the entire premise.

Jesus died on a cross not a croos  or a cruse.

There is simply no logical or historical reason the word became “U” or “ooo” dominated.

Secondly, the latter half of the — pronounced FiK-shun comes straight out of the Roman Army playbook to cast suspicion on the story of the resurrection. It was, they’d contend, a fiction, make believe, a fraud.

Crossifaction puts the “fact” right in the description, 

So, clearly, it should be crossifaction, not crucifixion.

Or used in a sentence: “We told them crackers that they had the wrong guy, but they went and done crossified poor Terry anyways,”

I ask that you remember the correct construction next spring when our thoughts once again return to the evergreen story of the Yeaster miracle.