When I went to take my meds last night I opened up a millions other thoughts and not just the bottles and boxes. I store my daily open pop-out strips and bottles of potions to be swallowed daily in a draw in the kitchen, but my major stash is in the bottom cupboard of a freestanding wall unit just by the kitchen door. To date it has been a good combination as it has supplied all the space required and the close order that helps with re ordering, but now I am considering rethinking the whole system. When I was sorting out the required array, I found that I needed another bottle of Amitriptyline but I couldn’t actually see any in the cupboard, they had to be further back but even when stretching my hand into the blackness I could find none. Without thinking I did what anyone would have done, I dropped onto one knee so that I could actually see. At the exact second my knee touched the floor, I knew I was stuck, there was no way I was going to be able to stand up again, the route was onto two knees, not two feet. It really was that exact second that I knew I had just managed to do something really stupid, there was no thought just a lightening fast realisation that I was once again stuck.

I stayed there on both my knees but otherwise upright while I considered my options, Adam was cleaning the bathroom so he was just a shout away, but I wanted to first try for myself, to work out my options. Strangely early that day I had said to Adam that I wanted to try and find out how I could move around the house and at what spots I could manage to get onto my feet again. The impact of my fall the other week was that I have actually been testing myself to see what strength I had and didn’t have, my arms have really gone down hill quickly in the past few months, they just don’t have the strength that I thought was still there. So there I was on my knees in the kitchen and rescue just a shout away, here was my first option to rescue myself with back up just a wall away. I had already collected the bottle I needed and placed it on the kitchen counter which was just to the right of me, but I was still facing the cupboard, I didn’t even bother putting a seconds thought into using the cupboard to pull myself up on, that would have had only one result, the cabinet with it’s large display of crystal crashing down on top of me. Although it has stood there in the kitchen for years, I have always been aware that it isn’t something you would want to grab at or try to put your weight on in any direction, other than to maybe to push it back towards the wall. It’s purpose of supplying display areas is well fulfilled, as almost every inch of every shelf is filled and when clean the light sparkles and reflects around the room, but it true use ends there.

The kitchen counters to my right is at the perfect height when you are standing but now on my knees the top of the counter was above my chin and my arms just don’t have the strength to pull myself up over such a distance. I had already decided that using cupboard and draw handles was out of order, although they all seem solid I simply didn’t want to test them, I have no desire to find myself with a repair bill but I did have one option that I edged towards. I shuffled along the counter on my knees, holding on to the counter edge to steady myself until I reached my perching stool. This was my savior but believe me a difficult and painful one to climb up on. Everything seems easier in your mind but when you actually try it out, the results are far to often not what you expected, even this morning my arms are still aching, but I did it, once on my feet again, it was as though nothing had happened. My legs carried me with ease and my arms although sore, still sorted out and made me take my meds before carrying my freshly filled glass back into the living room.

Each room other than the hallway now has an option to help me onto my feet, should I either fall or be that stupid again, both as likely as each other these days. I know that in both the kitchen and the bathroom flooring’s will allow me to shuffle, slide or wriggle across on my back or stomach, not elegant that is true but they will supply me with a way out, unlike the rest of the house. I so love my carpets and I would for no reason that anyone can come up with, get rid of them, but once on the floor they hold onto you. Friction can be like glue if you try to shuffle you body over them, the knowledge and proof that my arms are useless has produced a huge problem when it comes to my independence. I have had no fear of falling, there really is little to fear, worse case scenario has always been the possibility of knocking myself out and that has already happened. Adam worries more that I will land on some of the crystal that is everywhere, skewer myself on it and bleeding out as he isn’t here to help me. My attitude is well if it happens it happens, I want to see it all everyday, that is far more important than the danger it holds, if any. I haven’t had the body strength now for several months to sit up from lying down, hence my mattress elevator, my arms have no strength at all in them and my legs little more. These days just the simple act of standing from sitting here at my desk, or from my bed once I have swung my legs round so my feet are on the floor, the actually starting action now comes from my arms not my legs. Alone my legs can do little when true strength is needed, hence not being able to manage stairs, they just can’t do it. I expect that at this moment in time if I were on the living room carpet, well I would manage, that I would find a way. A mix of rolls and pushing my feet against anything there is there and solid enough to supply me with propulsion across the room, in a hope of reaching my target. I realise now that the day of being totally stuck down there isn’t really that far away, well I didn’t notice myself deteriorating to this point, it was suddenly there, so the next step I guess will be just as sudden. How can your body disappear so suddenly and with such ease, yet totally unnoticed? I thought I was still strong enough to take care of myself, but suddenly I’m not.

To someone who doesn’t give standing up from being on the floor as seconds thought, I don’t know how to explain that instant knowledge that you don’t have the strength to do it. It is almost as though suddenly your body weighs ten times what it does and gravity has grown at the same pace, there is nothing there to fight it with and add in the loss of true balance, well the whole thing becomes a living nightmare. Until you are where it is safe, where your balance is dealt with, as you have something solid and steady to take it’s place, but also at a height that your now useless limbs can actually use as a leaver to move your body upwards. Even when you get there, when you have found what you think is that perfect item to help you, remember your body has no strength and you have just used most of it’s reserves getting there. How long will it all take? How will you actually feel? And will you actually be able to stand at the end of it? It doesn’t matter how many times you fall, what matters is how many time you actually managed alone to get up, I guess that is another balance that is changing, I guess the time where I really won’t be able to get up isn’t really that far away.