The Queen of Adaptation - Blessings & Lessons in Misfortune

'Noooooooooooo!' In the split second it takes to crash onto the floor comes dread and regret.

Thud! Smash! Hitting the ground, my wrist, knee, and forehead take the brunt. There is immediate pain in my wrist. Jarring goes through my whole body with its fragile joints. And the bowl holding the carton of the last of the highly anticipated Belgian Chocolate icecream shatters loudly.

Nooo! Not again! I’ve done myself damage. Immediately flashes a dream of when I was sitting on the edge of a skyscraper and reached across to a bar sticking out, missed it, and as I fell into the air I had this huge regret that one small mistake had cost me my life. Of course this is not nearly so dramatic, but that same regret that had I picked up my foot slightly more, if I was paying more attention, my shoe wouldn’t have caught on the ground, tripping me up. 

I’m lying stunned, in pain, stuck, in a predicament. Alone. Not again. 

I Have to Get Myself Out of This

I have to draw on my determination reserves and get myself out of this. What to do first?

The ice-cream carton is on its side within reach, and rescuing it is the first step. No point letting it melt all over the floor. Chocolate therapy for later when I’ll need it.

I have to move, everything is hurting in the current prone state. Oh my fragile neck – sorry for the violent jarring. I need to sit up. When I last tripped over, with no injury, I managed to hoist myself up on a chair, pushing with my elbows. But that doesn’t feel possible with an injured arm. How to get to sitting without any weight on my left hand? Is it broken? I can still move my fingers, so hopefully just strained and bruised like last time.

My options for how to manoeuvre are, as usual, few because of the limited movement and strength in my joints. I slowly, carefully, roll onto the right side, holding my wrist tightly to my stomach. Phew. Stopping, breathing, recovering and bracing for the next step. Using my legs, stomach muscles and right arm to propel me up. I can do this. There’s a fleeting acknowledgment to myself of the forty years of swimming and hydro. I’m fit, my muscles are strong. Phew!  That’s better. I sit and breathe and recover.

A Long Metre

I have to call someone. Thankfully the phone is on the couch only a metre away.

But a metre is a long way when trying to propel backwards, with everything hurting, and only one weak leg and arm able to push. It’s rocking inch by painful inch along the narrow area between the coffee table and couch. Perhaps going forward would have been easier, but I’m committed now, it’s impossible to turn around in this confined space.  It’s a relief to reach the lifeline after a long 15 minutes.

I’m greeted with care and concern and immediate action driving to my place. Ah! Help is on its way, I can breathe and relax a little. The hardest bit is done. As I sit and wait, I tune in. It’s the jarring as I hit the floor that still resonates through my body, the whole system is disturbed by the shock; feeling distress, crying a little. 

Where I Don’t Want to Be

I sigh at being back to this place, where I really don’t want to be. I’ve been here before, having a few bad falls, creating permanent damage. The worst resulted in a badly fractured knee and during the knee replacement surgery my femur was fractured. Ten weeks in hospital, and a year of recovery and more years of rehab. Huge life disruption and challenges. I really don’t want to go there again. This fall is a consequence of that knee replacement. I ended up with a knee that never regained a full bend, and the leg being about three centimetres shorter, requiring adjusted shoes worn all the time. Bare feet would slide, but the shoe can catch slightly when the foot isn’t lifted high enough.

Twenty minutes later my spirit lifts when two friends show up and I’m up off the floor. I’m hugged and stroked and loved. We discuss my options. I don’t feel the need to go to emergency. We bind up my arm, I take painkillers and have a restless painful night.

Next morning, with my cheery friend driving, I get an Xray and a splint at the Sunday GP urgent care service, and the diagnosis of a small fracture in the wrist. Three days of excellent healthcare later my arm is protected by a purple plastic splint.  Thank God it isn’t a bad fracture, requiring surgery and all that would entail. I practice my graceful purple wave with a smile.

Lessons

When something big suddenly happens, I’m alert for the lessons and any changes called for. 

I’ve had another stark lesson in how easily we can shift from a fixed position or viewpoint when change becomes a necessity.

A friend says ‘You need a personal alarm system. You’re vulnerable on your own.’ ‘I hear you and will consider it’ I reply. It isn’t the first time a personal alarm has been suggested and my reaction (in my head) is the same. ‘No way! I can’t see it happening. I’m not going to live in fear, and daily remind myself of the possibility of tripping over. Talk about creating my own reality by bringing it to my consciousness all the time. That’s a no.’

Reflecting later, the effort it took to reach my phone has me looking freshly at the situation. Given I fell because my leg with the unbending knee didn’t raise a millimetre enough, the reality is this could happen again. While I will work with my Feldenkrais practitioner, and practice in the pool, to try to improve the leg movement and heel to toe action, ninety nine percent of the time it raises enough, but there is that tiny percentage risk of it happening again. While I’ve only had a few falls created by the injured knee in the last ten years, this is the worst injury so far and it’s opened my eyes to the risk.

Flexible Thinking

The picture of a discreet pendant worn around my neck arises, and reluctantly I realise I have to reconsider an alarm worn all the time. Yes but I don’t want to live in fear! But that long painful shuffle comes to mind again, and suddenly my mind set changes. Instead of seeing it as a symbol of fear, it becomes a symbol of safety. Having a button to save me in the worst case, if I am unable to move, or from a painful struggle to reach the phone, feels sensible and right. 

I’m taken aback at how quickly my viewpoint shifted, after being so long entrenched. I’m pleased that in this test of the flexibility of my thinking in the face of changing circumstances, I passed. 

Necessity Drives Change

It’s got me reflecting on the process of shifting our thinking. We all face times when our entrenched viewpoint is challenged to change, as individuals and society. But it doesn’t come easy. Accepting I needed to use a walking stick at age thirty, and later a wheelchair for longer walking and airports, involved years of denial, resistance and suffering before I surrendered. My ‘No, absolutely not!’ moved to ‘I need to do this, it makes sense.’ And then I wondered what all the fuss was about, life was easier when I said ‘yes’. 

It seems if we don’t have to, generally we won’t change our minds. We need convincing. But eventually necessity drives change. And as I observed, when we finally give in, then the shift can be quite sudden. 

Humanity is facing this on a collective scale. We need a radical shift in our thinking about how we are living on our planet, and we have had huge resistance to changing our ways, despite annihilation being the outcome. More of us need more convincing it seems, to vote for those who will act now on climate change and environmental sustainability. With more fires, floods and weather extremes, the consequences are hitting us where it hurts already, showing us in our faces, that it is now a necessity to change our thinking. It is possible!

'There’s nothing like an idea whose time has come.’