The Fall

Dateline: Caregiver City, Planet Aphasia

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There is nothing else in a house that sounds like a body hitting the floor. I heard that kind of thud today and from the kitchen I took off towards the bedroom in an old lady version of a triathlon competitor---stiff knees, making my gait bob from side to side as a speed walked, then hopped over the dog and came to a sliding stop with my socks. My arm was raised in the air as if I was taking part in an Olympic Torch Relay. That's when I realized that I had a wooden spoon in my hand and I was about to drip pistachio pudding all over the place. I did a quick scan of my husband, Don, lying on his back doing an imitation of a beached whale at dawn. He wasn't dead or dying so I dashed back to the kitchen to turn off the stove and deposit the spoon back in the pudding pan. It would have been embarrassing to call an ambulance, the fire department and a carpet cleaner all in the same hour.

Back in the bedroom, Don didn't want me to call 911 to bring help getting him off the floor. "It's a free service included in our taxes," I pleaded. Still, he wasn't ready to give in to the fact that his wife is not a female version of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. We needed help! I thought about all the books in our library and wondered if we had one titled, "An Idiot's Guide to Getting a Paralyzed Guy Back in His Wheelchair." Nope, but I put it on my mental shopping list. We did have a copy of a National Geographies magazine that has an article in it about rescuing beached whales. I briefly wondered if it would be of any help with the situation in the bedroom. Nope, pouring pails of water over Don while waiting for the tide to come in didn't make much sense in the middle of Michigan.