I have managed to injure my right ankle. The stupid thing is I don’t remember anything happening that could have caused it as it feels as though I have pulled the tendons just behind the ankle joint that run up from your heel to a couple of inches above the ankle joint. It is the sort of injury that you don’t need to move to be able to feel it, I spent all day yesterday limping and woke again this morning aware of the pain before I even put any weight on it. I know I took a fall last week, but since then I have had a couple of wobbles but nothing severe enough to damage another part of me.
One of the big dangers that you learn to live with isn’t just what your condition is doing, but all the silly little injuries that you manage to do to yourself along the way. For years I have found really deep bruises all over me, especially my legs, but with no memory of how they happened, now I know it doesn’t take much and because you are full of drugs, you just don’t feel it the same way as before. I bounce off furniture almost daily and I am so used to it, that I don’t pay any attention any longer. When I was still working it was my thighs and hips that always took the brunt of any fall, as I careered into desks, that was the point where their surface met mine, these days they have moved much lower. The other most common injury from falling so far has been the removal of skin, I have never received any deep cuts, but stripping skin happens quite often. You would be amazed the dangers there are around us, even in our modern safety conscious, rounded edged and padded world there are. Just take a look around the room you are in right now, especially if you don’t have children, I bet there are several things that could seriously damage you if you fell onto them.
Bruises the most common injury, but very close behind them are burns on my hands and on my forearms, you don’t have to be Einstein to work that one out, stopping cooking brought a total end to them. When your hands spend a lot of time being numb, burning yourself is the most simple thing ever and cutting yourself runs a close second. I have found a way round that one, which on the surface sounds as though it should be more dangerous, but it works for me. The only thing that I really cut these days is cheese, so what I do instead of putting the cheese on a hard surface then cutting downwards to slice it, I now hold the cheese in my hand and pull a sharp knife, slowly towards me, shaving off the slice of cheese. It works because I can see all of my figures, none are obscured by the lump of cheese and I can see all of the blade, so I know exactly what is happening all the time and the blade can’t slip when it is always inside the cheese moving steadily. All too often it takes just a little thought to avoid injury, even if the solution sounds a little flaky if it works, it works.
There is one danger that all of us with a condition that causes numbness has to be careful of and that is to keep an eye on any cut that they are aware of and to even check things like their feet for those they don’t know about. I was even warned by the chiropodist that because of the shape of my toes and the way that some place the nails in a position that could mean they cut into the toe next to it, to check at least weekly in case there is a cut as they can become infected easily without me even knowing. You don’t think about things like that when you are told you have MS, all you think of are the big things, but more damage that it does, the more secondary problems there are ahead. I know that I am reaching the age where every fall brings the possibility of breaking bones closer and closer, to date I have bounced rather well, luck has been on my side, but that luck won’t last forever. Like it or not and for me it is a not, the day will come when I have to give in and I have to accept a walking frame, not so much to help with walking, but more so that I don’t fall so much and I have something to use to get myself back on my feet.
It is an odd one, as even though I don’t go out, I still have this desire to not appear more disabled than I have to, the idea of using a walking frame is as bad, or even worse than using a wheelchair. When you consider that no one other than Adam ever sees me, there is a clear line of madness here, I suppose that none of us want to appear less than what we are, especially in the eyes of those we love, but although I can see that this logically makes no sense, I can’t help the way I feel about it. I know that the day I actually got my wheelchair I was delighted with it on its very first outing, just the freedom it gave me and the change in how others looked at me, I was a person again, rather than a possible drunk unable of walking a straight line. Getting your head around all the changes that are demanded of you is hard, I know that most out there will be scratching their heads and wondering what on earth the problem is, especially as I have already said how helpful a walking stick was and how great a wheelchair is, a frame is one more item that is there to help, but it is also one for some reason I have a total resistance to.
If it were possible to use my wheelchair in the house, well I am getting to the point where I don’t think I would mind doing so but it isn’t as easy as getting it out of the cupboard. Adapting our home to allow me to use a wheelchair in here is almost impossible, simply because of the way it is built. Our hallway is almost square and all the doors to each room come off that square, the doorways can’t be widened as each door is only separated by the depth of the dividing wall between each room. The room that causes the greatest problem is the bathroom as firstly the door is the narrowest and the toilet is set back down a narrowed section almost corridored section of the room, too narrow for a chair to access. Even if I could get a chair into each room, it would have to be a powered chair as my arms just wouldn’t push me anywhere any longer. I always knew this problem lay ahead and I guess that I put my head in the sand, just hoping that it wouldn’t happen or at least not for many years yet, last week fall and the problems I had getting up again, well it has made me think, a lot. No matter how much I think, I just can’t come up with an answer that I can be happy with, well not yet anyway.
Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 09/05/12 – Do you want to reboot now? YES!!
Two Rooms Plus Utilities 