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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 had 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, surrounded by flowers, prospects dim, I wondered, “If six friends 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.)
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