Front Porch: Falling injuries get serious past certain age

A (not so) funny thing happened two weeks ago as I was leaving the house to go to the grocery store. I fell down.

Everybody falls. Little kids do it all the time. Teenagers, adults, there isn’t anyone alive who hasn’t tripped, lost balance, slipped on the ice, been knocked over.

You get up, dust yourself off and move on.

Except when you’re an older person. When balance is challenged, when bones and joints and muscles are weaker, when there’s arthritis or osteoporosis. Then, falling can become the final move bringing on nothing less than your loss of independence.

At the doctor’s office, we older people are often asked about tripping hazards in the home and given advice about how to live in a mobility-safe environment.

Falling is serious business, no longer one of those things that, when it happens, your first reaction is embarrassment, and you look around to see if anyone saw your graceless landing before you pop up and proceed as if nothing happened.

And so, I had an old-lady fall one Tuesday afternoon early in March. I did not pop right up.

There are five steps down from my kitchen into my garage, steps I’ve gone up and down for more than 30 years now. When I reached the bottom of the stairs on that fateful day, I strode forward toward my car. But I was thinking about something and, in the dimly-lit garage, did not notice that I was actually on the fourth step and not at the base of the fifth. So over I went.

Concrete floors are not kind to the elderly. My right arm hit first. And it broke – technically, at the wrist. Taking a look at it, I could see right away that it was broken.

I broke arms as a child, and even though that was a million years ago, sitting there on the floor of the garage, I was suddenly again that small child who had been so sure she could glide down to the ground like a bird that she let go of the swing she was on when it was at high arc, to begin her graceful descent to the grass. That swan’s landing and this most recent encounter with reality had the same result. Odd, how it felt so familiar.

Three firemen came to get me on my feet. I noted at the time that they were not only strong but handsome. I wonder if being good looking is a prerequisite for that profession. Or maybe it’s just that the people who come to the rescue are automatically beautiful because of what they are doing for us.

At the ER, the offending bone was maneuvered back into place, making my arm look like a regular arm again. I was informed that to achieve a stable repair and the best possible long-term function, I would need orthopedic surgery.

That happened a few days later, and a plate and screws were attached to the offending bone. I am now working out how to do everything temporarily one-handed.

I am a freelance writer. Typing left-handed (I find the three-finger method works best) is so incredibly slow and maddening that everything seemingly takes forever, including writing these words.

Under the best of circumstances, I am not a patient woman. These are not the best of circumstances.

I’ve been fortunate that I have a kind and supportive husband and friends who have brought over meals. Our son came from Seattle for several days to take care of me post-op while his father worked.

And it could have been so much worse, I know that. It was for my friend Libby in California. She slipped going down the stairs, fell over backward and now has two implanted rods supporting her spine. She walks slowly with the assistance of two canes.

I’m getting a lot of advice about stairs now – from always knowing how many there are and counting steps as you go up or down, to always watching your feet to be sure you clear the risers. And, of course, holding on to the railing.

Lessons learned. Gratitude given. But along with all of that comes a realization, a milestone in the aging process, one I had hoped was still at least a little ways off in the distance.

I am now one of those older women who, when she falls, she breaks.

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Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by e-mail at upwindsailor@comcast.net.