Sunday, October 18, 2015

Suspect Terrain

Dad's been a bit unsteady on his feet for a while now.

It all started when his neurologist took him off his Parkinson's meds when she decided that he didn't actually have Parkinson's. (Go back to  "Well He's Got That Going For Him" posted last February.) One of the meds was to help with his balance and he's been a bit wobbly ever since.

That, and the stress of the last year with all the pacemaker surgeries make him seem a little more like 90 and a little less like 80. AND he's still walking with the cane.

At some point during the summer he started complaining about a pain in his leg. He even went to see Dr. Wiggins who referred him to a specialist. X-rays and scans showed nothing, but the pain persisted.

I know of one fall. It was at church on the anniversary of Mom's death. He went up onto the marble floor around the altar to take pictures of the flowers. Marla picked one of the flowers from the display and gave it to Dad to take out to the garden where we had interred Mom's ashes. Dad took off on a diagonal toward the open stained glass doors.

"Watch out for the..." I was about to say "step," when he missed the step, falling head over heels into the railing of the first pew. His cane made an awful clatter bouncing on the marble floor. Everyone who was in the church was around him in a second. He paused a moment, then popped right up.

Needless to say, everyone was quite concerned. Expecting the worst, offers were made to call an ambulance, bring up a chair, find the nurse, and a priest was right there....

Of course Dad insisted he was fine and dusted himself off, straightened his jacket and went out to place the flower.

But the pain in his leg became worse. Now it was confused with bruising from the fall. Attempting to go the fair was a big issue. We skipped the first symphony concert of the season because of the walking distance. He skipped going to the first service with the new interim rector because of the walking.

Maybe it's bruising. Maybe it's just life in his nineties, but he seems to have lost a step.

BUT, he's enrolling in a new physical therapy for the problem leg. AND there's one thing we've all learned: Don't rule the DeeDon out!