A walker should help prevent falls, right?
The day the wheels sabotaged me when I changed my morning routine
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I’m getting more comfortable using my walker. However, it just doesn’t pay to trust the darned thing.
The other day in my bedroom, I was putting clothes away. I was planning to take a shower later in the day, so I thought I’d save myself some steps. I grabbed a fresh set of clothes and laid them on the seat of the walker.
My plan was to stop in my wonderful, accessible bathroom to put the clothing on my changing bench, so I’d be all set for my shower later in the day without backtracking to the bedroom. Somehow, it didn’t work out very well.
The bathroom is narrow, so I don’t normally bring the walker in with me; I usually leave it just outside the door. There the walker keeps me balanced before I back my feet carefully into the bathroom. Then when I return to the main part of the house through a hall, the walker is right outside the bathroom door, so I can just grab its handles, turn to the hall, and go.
For some reason, this time I thought I’d save a little trouble and didn’t follow my routine. Instead, I left the walker sitting sideways, facing my hall to the main part of the house. My logic was simple: I’d skip both the backup procedure to get into the bathroom and the turn to the hall after exiting.
There was a major flaw in my thinking, though. I totally forgot about the walker’s wheels; the rear ones are behind the frame.
I was ambushed
I rolled my clothing into a bundle so I could carry it in one hand. As a blind person, I need one hand free for navigation as well as for stability when I’m not using the walker, which I’m not as I enter the bathroom. I took care because my facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) has stolen my balance, and I’m totally unstable when I’m carrying anything. I held the bundle as close to my body as possible to steady myself.
With the clothes in my left arm, I turned to the right to enter the bathroom. I stepped forward with my right foot, then extended my right hand to stabilize using the doorknob. I’d just grasped the doorknob when things went south.
As I tried to step with my left foot, I tripped over the wheel of the walker. My body jerked forward, and I lost my grip on the doorknob. My body went to the left and bounced off the bathroom closet door. The clothes went flying, and I went down.
My knees hit first. Then my left hand went out as I tried to break my fall. My left arm doesn’t have much strength left, so it collapsed beneath me as the rest of my body hit the floor.
My wife, Wendy, watched me go down. She rushed over to ask if I was OK. I told her I thought so. She ran downstairs to ask Jill, our daughter, to come help.
Jill excused herself from an online meeting she was conducting. She and Wendy converged on the bathroom door as I was trying to get myself turned over.
My left arm didn’t have enough strength to push me up at all. Somehow, I managed to roll the other way and free my arm.
Wendy helped me into a sitting position. The space was too narrow for both Wendy and Jill to work together to get me back on my feet, so Jill wanted to try to do it herself. I vetoed this idea. I didn’t want Jill to hurt herself.
Instead, I told Wendy and Jill to step aside. I’ve had to crawl on my hands and knees to nearby stairs to get into a standing position, but my knees were already hurting. I thought I could slide on my butt to the top of the stairs. From there, I was pretty sure I could get my feet down a few steps and, from there, pull myself into a standing position. I’ve been able to do that after past falls.
The path for my slide was rather long, with several turns to make. When I was about halfway, Jill told me that since our floors are vinyl, she could just pick up my feet and tow me to the steps. She grabbed my feet and started pulling. Wendy began pushing me from behind. We only made it about 10 feet before all of us broke down in laughter. This helped break the tension we were all feeling.
I slid the rest of the way to the steps and was able to get on my feet. I walked down to our front door landing, and Wendy sent my stair lift down so I could ride it back up.
The moral of the story is don’t try to cut corners, and watch out for those walkers. They can’t be trusted!
Note: Muscular Dystrophy News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Muscular Dystrophy News Today or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to muscular dystrophy.
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