As my regular reader will know, I have been finding my mobility getting slowly but surely worse; now it has really come to such a point that yesterday evening I was sitting at my computer and went to stand up…
... and couldn’t.
So I crawled (with some difficulty) to the foot of the bed which is where, up till now, I have been able to push/pull myself up...
...not this time.
So now I had to get to the pull cord for help.
Of course for those of you who don’t know, I have a friend called Mr Sod, who has a Law about this and thus at this point I was about equidistant from the bedroom and the hall cords!
So I set off pulling with my forearms and pushing with my lower legs till eventually I made it to the cordand spoke to someone at the helpline.
Two nice men arrived shortly afterwards, one a Paramedic and one an EMT – and I know the difference now.
To cut to the chase, they got me up to stand then saw me through to my living room chair (with the wonderful extra cushion from OT). The EMT made me a cup of tea (bless him) while his colleague did the “paperwork” on a computer. We agreed that I did not need to go into hospital, so they went away with my heartfelt thanks.
Why is it that just when I really need my new typist chair with arms, the couriers have managed to lose it!
Mr Sod at it again.
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10 comments:
Oh dear, how incredibly frustrating. The lengths you go to get someone to make you a cup of tea and to have not 1 but 2 men in your living room, at the same time!! So glad you didn't have to go into hospital though.
Daughter x
So sorry to hear about this incident. It must be very frustrating to say the least. You sound like a very independent, strong woman. You are in my prayers, may God bless you.
To daughter
:-)
To Sharon
Many thanks for your good wishes.
Sounds awful. What a good thing you had the foresight to move to somewhere with pull cords for getting help.
Maybe someone might give you one of those medallion alarm call things for Christmas, which would mean less crawling should the need arise again. However lots of people seem to forget to wear them. A cure would of course be better - hopefully the elastic stockings will help.
Were you sitting on the floor to use your PC, or did you fall?
To elderly lady in training
ummm, before I moved here I lived in a normal block of flats (ground floor, which meant 8 steps - don't ask). The local authority there (I have moved to a different part of the country)had a standard package for the security of all the elderly in the county with add-ons available on request subject to a fee, depending what extras you chose. At that time I chose a pendant alarm as an extra and wore it all the time. Here we don't have that option.
You made me giggle at the thought of sitting on the floor to work at my pc!, so I sort of fell and could not get up. Just a bore, no injuries.
You can get the alarms independently eg from Help The Aged, see
http://www.helptheaged.org.uk/en-gb/AdviceSupport/HomeSafety/PersonalAlarms/
or from Saga, see
http://www.saga.co.uk/sos/
I found out about them for an elderly relative, but haven't yet seen one.
You do have to pay for them, which might seem a waste given you have the pull cords, but it might be worth considering. On the other hand - hopefully the elastic stockings will do the trick.
to elderlu lady in training - yes I know that but don't think I need that t yet!!
In my humble opinion a medallion alarm would be a good idea. Maybe you don't need one yet, but it will be too late when you discover that you did. If you get my drift...... S.
okay, okay, I get the ideea, I'll look into it. I do know it is not available as part of the careline package here. (That is only the pull cords.
thank you very much to elderly lady in training. I have looked at both sites and will discuss this with my family,
In some ways it conflicts with the system we have here which provides everything that the press button alarm does (except for the pendant) and who are based pretty locally, so they have local knowledge. When I wore a pendant before, I wasn't able to press it when I really needed it, and when I did need help at any other time, I reached the base unit.
This is a bit of a ramble!
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