Rescue Me

I had to be rescued today.

I thought I had everything under control. I was safe in bed, wanting to get up. All I had to do was slide the sling over to my bed, shimmy it underneath myself, and lift myself up. Unfortunately, as I twisted to get the sling, my leg fell out of bed, my left leg. As it slid off the bed, bouncing over the bedframe, it lodged my foot under the wheel of my wheelchair. That left me unable to sit up or shimmy over the sling in any way at all.

My foot was only lightly jammed. For any normal person, it would have been no problem at all to lift their leg up and out. Only my legs don't lift anymore. They haven't for a long time. Up until recently I could lift my legs up, individually, with my arms. So even without leg power, a short time ago I simply would have grabbed my leg and lifted it. Alas, now that my arms are in full and rapid decline, I can't even do that anymore.

Now the first question some might ask is where HomeCare was in all of this. Well, Home Care Aides were both the assistants in authoring this misfortune, and the angels coming to the rescue. Early this morning, ahead of schedule, Edith arrived. She is not my favourite HCA, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is she was early and immediately told me she was in a hurry. I knew what that meant. No exercises for sure. Rushed shower time. Rushed dressing time. No breakfast. That's just the way it is with Edith; she is on-call for coverage, on salary with CBI HomeCare, and always overbooked.

When Edith arrived, I looked at my clock. It said 9:15 AM. That may not seem early to you, but for me it is barely past sunrise as far as I am concerned. I considered what was happening and told Edith I would stay in bed. What I forgot to ask is for her to get me dressed enough that I could get up on my own, and to position the sling underneath me so I would be able to get up easily. I was not fully functional; I was not yet awake enough to contemplate future needs.

This whole gettting up and dressed is something I can no longer do on my own. So when I want to sleep in, or sleep longer, or just stay in bed for the day, I still get up to go to the bathroom, take my pills, and get dressed. Then I get back into bed, on the sling, and while away my hours. What that means is when I finally do want to get up, if at all, I just have to sling myself into my manual wheelchair, something I can still do on my own.

This morning that whole process fell apart. I found myself in bed, waking up at around 2:00 PM, with no clothes on and no sling. So, I tried to get up. That's how my day began. Needing rescue.