Tomorrow Is Another Day

It's 10:00 PM. I am finally getting to writing in my blog. Of course, as with so many things, I have a reason, or at least an excuse. First of all, I didn't wake up until aroun 2:00 PM, at which time I promptly went back to sleep until around 4:00 PM. I dawdled for a bit, just to get used to the idea of being awake. Then at around 5:00 PM, things started getting... interesting.

First of all, I texted my friend Anne to see if she was coming for dinner today. She replied at 5:11 PM, whereupon I confirmed her attendance at 6:00 PM for dinner, telling her that I would get up shortly. About 4 minutes later I got up, using my sling, having had placed it under during the HCA's morning visit. I slung over to the commode chair. I was getting up for the first time today, and that means other things happen. I carefully placed myself over the commode chair, then lowered myself down.

When I the chair I was a bit off centered, both front and back and sideways. I adjusted while still in the sling, meaning I was supported, unable to fall. Once settled, I removed the front sling straps from their hook. It was then that I felt a bit awkwardly seated. I wanted to move backwards a bit, so I leaned forward ever so slightly, using my commode chair handrail as a grip. Alas, it was a grip to weak. I fell.

Everything slows down for me in times like this. It all becomes slow, perpetually memorable, motion. It started out as a weak stuttered sloping forward, me grasping desparately to renew my grip on the handrail, only to realize that it was too late. The forward list was about to become a full pitchpole. My core and lower muscles, unable to move due to paralysis, did nothing but go along for the ride. On that ever faster journey, I realize, perhaps a millisecond before collision that my face was headed straight for the floor.

I paused for a moment to save the memory, strong into the firmament of my mind. Perhaps I even thought rather than reacted. Either way, my face turned right, its strongest side, and, by the way, best profile. I was not quite through the turn when my orbital bone, right where it meets the zygomatic arch, hit. My face squished downwards like an octopus head. I powered my left upper lip into the effort as well. There was a thud.

Then the room got really quite. Either that or my right ear went deaf for a few minutes, just to match the left. My face hurt, from lips to crown. There were no apparent injuries other than a fat lip getting steadily fatter on my upper left. My shoulders and arms hurt from their collective efforts, futile in the end, to soften the fall. I fell, and hit, hard. Not hard enough to break anything, other than my pride. Just hard enough to do a bit of facial bruising and fatten my upper left lip.

I lay there for about 10 minutes, sizing things up. My next thought was my phone, on the dresser above. I was down, solid. I would need help to get back up, help with sling, help with wheelchair positioning, help with emotions. So I put a towel underneath myself, sliding myself just far enough to reach my phone's power charger, a substanial effort consuming about 10 - 15 minutes. Fortunately my phone was plugged in. I pulled the cord. Down came the phone. Nothing broke. I called 911,

The ambulance crew arrived. On their arrival Excitement all round, this was their first time in attendance in my apartment. I doubt it will be the last. First they got me back into my sling from whence I transferred myself back into the commode chair. They took vital signs. You'll all be happy to know that my blood pressure is fine, my cranial bones are stable and attached, and that I don't have diabetes. Once all that was done, they ensured I got safely to the bathroom, even going so far as to help get my pants off. They left and I restarted my plan from an hour ago. No harm, no foul.

Except there was one, very real casuality of this calamity. Me. No, not me in the person sense; me in the metaperson sense. Not my pride so much, but my self-confidence. "I did this last month. Why can't I do it this month? How can I live like this? Why?" Of course there is no why. Things just are, or are not. I've got ALS. I am getting weaker by the day. I will die, soon, because of this disease. That's just the way it is.

I will recover. I always do, until that time I don't. I am going to bed shortly, well medicated. I will sleep soundly tonight. "After all, tomorrow is another day."