I have a new friend in my life. My wife knows all about him. Her daughter gifted me his presence over a year ago and now he has become active in my life. He is my walker. When I first received him as a gift, he sat quietly in the corner of our garage. I obviously did not need him; he was for some future date when things got more difficult.
My first step was my cane and even that seemed silly. But I was gun shy. Ten years ago over a six month period I fell. Twice I fell down flights of stairs. I did not do a really good job of checking in with my doctor, so on one of the falls, I went through a long period when I walked around in a fog. I'm sure I had a concussion, and when I finally healed from it I looked back and realized how bad it was. So suddenly I was very conscious that I was going to be hyper-vigilant about falling. I started with periodic use of my cane and discovered with age came some interesting balance issues. Finally my cane became my constant companion. I had been given a beautiful wooden cane from a dear friend and I started to use it all the time.
But our backyard has ups and downs and the cane was not always enough. So I started to use my walker in the backyard. Then my mobility went away, and on my long trips to the medical facility, a walker became a must.
I love my walker! I now consider myself a little privileged having a walker. My walker has a seat with a storage container. I can go anywhere and I always have some place to sit when not everyone else does. It's kind of cool having that ability. I have been to meetings and events where I just plop myself in the corner quietly sitting in my traveling home. I always have a place to put my water, my snacks and my kindle. Most of all I recognize this is part of self-care.
It's so easy to fight it when in truth it is changing the norm. We did that when we went down to one car. I know people who fight that but it is a natural progression. In addition, knowing our age, we upgraded our car last year because we knew this would be our last one. Now we just have to work with the Uber app...what self-care steps are you taking?
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