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Happy New Year From the Bottom of the Stairwell
Source: Pixabay
My only resolution is to never again descend the stairwell wearing socks without grippy nubs. It happened yesterday. A split second I didn’t see coming, nor did I have any chance to stop the fall once it began. Boom, boom, boom … down the flight of stairs, banging my elbows, slamming my heel, and crashing my right thigh into something. I can’t imagine what it was, but I could not lift my right leg.
Once I landed, my husband called out from the kitchen, “Are you okay?” before turning the corner to find me sitting at the foot of the stairs conducting a mental scan of my body, searching for signs of broken bones. I was recently diagnosed with osteoporosis, a scary condition that threatens fractures at even the slightest of bumps. The medication is horrendous, and it wasn’t more than a week ago that I messaged my doctor telling her I would not be taking it anymore. I’d rather wear a cast than ache body-wide, hiccup every time I take a sip of water, and, excuse the crudeness, let out a shallow belch from the chest cavity after that same sip of water. Sleeplessness has also returned, which is not good for anyone. The overall feeling of un-wellness is not okay at this point in my life.
So, the sudden slip and tumble down the lower flight of stairs yesterday morning may have actually been a blessing in disguise! You see, I trust that everything that happens, even sudden slips and falls, are within the purview of God’s control. I am of the belief that either He allows or He engineers our circumstances, which covers everything (No, this is not pollyanna. Not all circumstances [trials] are good at the moment). Was yesterday’s quick float to the hardwood a meaningful incident? Yes, I think so. Why?
Because nothing is broken. Potential points of fractious impact—left forearm, both elbows, right femur, left heel, and lower backbone … are all intact. Yes, in that moment as I sat there on the hardwood running my mental scan, I asked God to fix me where necessary. My husband also sent out a prayer request to the church team. Yesterday there was pain. Last night, I slept well through nine hours and woke up this morning able to lift my right leg without assistance from my right arm. My left elbow is still tender but working fine. And as long as I don’t step with any pressure on my left heel, I’m good to go. Probably will wait on the elliptical until tomorrow.
Now, all of that to say this:
Happy New Year.
2025 has started out well for me. The way I look at it, the Almighty spoke through a momentous incident to reassure me that He knows my frame, He has knit me together, and He is committed to taking care of me. Even if that means saying no to a medication that is supposed to improve my life but was quickly turning me into a miserable complainer.
Being preoccupied with your own maladies really takes the zip out of living in the Kingdom of God. I say “no” to that. And “yes” to following after Christ into a new year of miraculous possibilities.
Published in General
Amen to that! It is, at the least, arrogant to believe we can know or understand the mind or the thoughts of God. (Rom. 11:36)
Only what He reveals! I Corinthians 2
Any time I fall off my horse I have taken to doing the body scan, then the ego scan, then I get up. The only times I have gotten injured were on Fridays. I keep riding, and on Fridays, too. I have been working on the “Not today, Satan!” grab to keep from coming off. You have to live your life and if that means you buy a wardrobe of nubbly socks and grippy-soled slippers, then that’s what you do. Joshua 1:9.
Bringing in the new year with a bang, I see.
Stick with fireworks in the future. They’re safer.
Smiling! And a little chuckle. 😀
Falling off of a horse is always fun.
My 7 year old grandson is in his second year of ice skating / ice hockey.
When I watch video (and last month seeing some of his practices and games in person) in which they keep falling and popping right back up I think, “I’d probably lie there for ten minutes to assess my condition before getting back up.”
But then 7 year olds are a lot closer to the ice when they fall than I would.
Watching little kids fall and pop right back up amazes this old guy.
“Being preoccupied with your own maladies really takes the zip out of living in the Kingdom of God.”
So very true. I’m glad you’re okay. Happy New Year!
In college [January 1983] I moved into a house with three guys I didn’t know, to replace a roommate of theirs who had graduated.
My bedroom was the top of a long, steep, bare wood staircase that let out into the kitchen.
On my second or third day in the house I left my room with plain cotton socks on my feet, to come downstairs where the others were playing cards at the kitchen table. I made it about three steps before my feet shot out from under me and I traveled the rest of the way down the stairs on my back, landing on the floor next to the table.
Other than about ten seconds of shock while I laid motionless as I tried to figure out whether and where I might be injured, I was unhurt [except my pride, and a slight case of stiffness for a few days – it’s good to be young].
One of the roommates told me later that their first reaction was “oh crap, the new guys dead. Now what are we going to do?”.
I lived in that house until the end of August, I never again went down those stairs wearing just socks on my feet.
I’m trying to remember now if it was a Sunday morning three Januaries ago when I woke up remembering that I had promised to shovel the sidewalks at church. I didn’t turn the light on but ran down the enclosed staircase to the dining room in my socks, my hand light on the railing, and slipped before I got to the bottom. My right foot bore the brunt of the fall. I don’t remember now whether it slammed into the door at the base of the stairs or on something else. The scary part was how hard it was to hold on to the rail to keep from pitching head first when I arrived at the bottom, into the dining room table and chairs, which I think could have made for a sadder ending to the story.
I did manage to drive to church and shovel the sidewalks, but it didn’t feel good. It was several months before I quit feeling the results in my right foot and ankle.
I no longer go down those stairs in my stocking feet or with no light on. I don’t care for a repeat of that one.
Being in my mid 70s, I sometimes wish I could take a easy fall somewhere so I could lie to my doctor about how many times I’d fallen in the last year. (I’d tell her I was lying, just like I tell pollsters I’m going to tell lies if I answer their questions.) I didn’t get asked the question that year. In 2022 I fell off my bicycle twice, when I forgot to unclip before coming to a stop or a sharp turn, but I rolled with the fall each time and no harm was done. I ride unclipped more often these days (my pedals have clips on one side and are flat on the other) just because I realize I’m probably getting more brittle as I get older, and falls could start to get more serious.
Thanks Susan! Me too! And my husband is relieved of what would have become a winery house. I mean whiney house.
On second thought ..,
Yeah. The part about the dead guy. Lol!
Great story! Thank you. I feel like Im in good company.
Sorry, but this made me giggle.
That’s why I included it in the story. It’s stuck with me for more than 40 years now.
I got some followup grief on it for a few weeks as I got to know them better, but that was more of a visual joke that’s hard to put in words.
Oh no! Helluva way to start 2025. I’m glad you’re okay!
I slipped and bounced down the stairs once. Ended up with a deep bruise in my rear end, which swelled up to look like I had a softball inside me. Scared the bejeezus out of neutral observer . . .
When I have an accident of any kind, even minor ones like a toe-stubbing or a papercut, it takes an effort not to permit the near-instinctual eruption of a resentful silent tantrum about the cosmic injustice just endured. That your thoughts turned to gratitude so quickly is a tribute to your spiritually healthy constitution. Congrats on that. It matters. Cheers.
One of the worst falls I ever had happened when I stepped out of my car on the driver’s side lifting a cake that I had made for one of the teachers in my child’s middle school. Getting the cake from the passenger’s seat over the steering wheel, and being in a hurry, meant that I didn’t see that I was stepping out of the car onto a twelve-inch-thick slab of ice. This was so crazy because I had parked in a handicapped spot by a back door of the building so that I could get into the school quickly with the cake. :) :) So much for taking care of the handicapped parking spaces. :) Are we helping people? :)
I had a bruise that lasted the rest of the winter. When the bruise finally broke up, the parts of it drifted down to my ankle. Too funny.
So glad you are okay.
I’ve only fallen twice in the last decade. The first time I slipped on the stairs. My stocking feet hit the wall at the bottom and my hips landed hard on the edge of the uncarpeted stair. I landed so hard it woke a teenager! On careful assessment my first thought was that my bone density must be pretty spectacular.
The second time, to my shame, I had just grumpily told my final two at-home kids that I was looking forward to being a lonely old woman in a VERY CLEAN HOUSE!! Lightening didn’t strike, but the message was speedy and clear. As I headed out into the garden I missed the last stair, caught my heal on it, and sprained both ankles as I tried to regain my footing. I stumbled to the picnic table sat down quickly, and put my feet up. I thought, no worries, I’ll just get the attention of the first passerby and ask them to get me a couple of bags of frozen peas and some painkillers from the house. All will be well. However, not a single soul passed by before my daughter arrived home from her classes….. three hours later. Lesson learned. Count your blessings. Thanks God.
I can think of four distinct incidents where I’ve fallen down stairs in my life – the worst was while I was holding our 6(ish) month old baby, who I was able to make land on top of me instead of underneath me.
I also had a fall down the basement stairs while my brother was helping me move one of the old rear-project-style TVs down there. We were pivoting the box on the landing halfway down. I was on the downhill side of the landing and got my butt a little too far out and lost my balance. Fortunately the basement floor was carpeted and had an exceptionally thick waterproof pad under it – I still hit my head on the floor hard enough that I saw a white flash. Once my brother was sure I wasn’t dead he laughed for a long time.
Now I’m old enough I can’t even jump down from the three foot high retaining wall in our back yard without feeling it, so I always walk around.
I guess that means we can only imagine.
Thank you. I am doing pretty well today. I feel almost back to myself, which is pretty amazing given how many steps I cleared on my bum. I haven’t actually looked for any bruises. I figure out of sight out of mind.
Wow! Thank you for the encouraging words. I needed to hear that. And I think all of us need to hear that at times. Happy new year to you!
Good grief that sounds really complicated and awful. There’s so many things that could have gone a lot worse than what you suffered and so I’m glad to hear that you’re OK despite the fact that your bruise remains somewhere around your ankle. My daughter would say that you can always get a tattoo and incorporate the bruise into it … and call it art.
I had to laugh at your comment about having the house clean. That is my dream. But then, despite the messes, having my kids around, keeps me humble.
I’ve also learned to lighten up with messiness.
For now.
Oooh. Good move.
Last Sunday I was holding a 3-month-old baby after church while her mother was taking care of other duties. I like to hold the babies and get to know them, but almost every Sunday there are teen-age and pre-teen girls who scoop up any babies and toddlers and mother them. That’s a good thing, but I don’t stand a chance against that competition. But those girls were all absent last Sunday, so the mother didn’t have her usual help. She gladly handed off her little one (the youngest of four) to me. The little one has just reached an age where her eyes show she’s actively aware of everything going on around her, and it’s fun to see. At one point I got down on my knees so a three-year-old girl of my acquaintance could show the baby her newly painted fingernails. About wrenched my back standing back up from that position, but no harm done.
That was all fine, but soon everyone went downstairs to join the others for coffee, and I was alone with the baby at the top of the stairs. Usually those stairs are easy to navigate. I don’t bother with railings. But I must admit that I was suddenly nervous about carrying a baby down stairs, like I had never been before. I often carry heavy or awkward objects up or down the stairs for other people who need help. But this was a baby. I became conscious of my age. My bottom-of-the-stairs incident of a few years ago came to mind. The right hand railings have been removed on those stairs to make way for a chair lift, and I didn’t want to shift the baby to my right arm so I could use the railing on the other side, but I sort of reached out and touched whatever was within reach all the way down. I had never done that before.
I didn’t say anything to anyone else, but later told my wife how I had gotten nervous about navigating stairs with a baby in my arm. I’m not sure what to make of it, other than that I must be getting older.
First off, congratulations on the acrobatics that saved your six month old from having to carry the burden of your weight. Second, I think you owe your brother something. I don’t know if it’s something good or what. But I think you owe him something.
I treat a lot of patients with osteoporosis. You must have been taking alendronate (aka Fosamax) or risedronate (Actonel). These side effects are a limiting factor for these drugs for some patients. Fortunately, most patients do not experience them.
If you have osteoporosis you should see an endocrinologist rather than a primary care physician. Don’t be afraid to ask for such a referral. The drugs used for osteoporosis and osteopenia, a less severe form of the same disease, are many, complex and confusing.
A better treatment for you might be denosumab (Prolia), given by injection twice a year. It is wonderfully tolerated with a very low incidence of side effects. There can be body-wide aching for the two or three days after an injection but these aches, caused by a transient hypocalcemia, only occur in about 1% of patients. They are easily prevented by giving extra calcium and vitamin D for a few days before and after each injection.
Alendronate stabilizes bone metabolism, resulting in an increasing bone density for an average of three years. Denosumab reliably increases bone density for ten years.
Don’t let your next fall result in a hip fracture. See an endocrinologist.
This happened a couple of decades ago, but thank you for your good wishes. The bruise is just a faint memory now. :) :)
oh my gosh, this is a seriously well timed blessing. I have an Endo appointment in February. The culprit has been Boniva.
I’m out running errands, but if you don’t mind me sending you a direct message. I have a couple of questions general questions. Later this afternoon.
i’ll be looking for your bill. Happy to pay out-of-pocket