IT'S A LONG WAY DOWN . . .

I didn't write last night because we were all kind of shaken up. Dad fell and Mom, the little kids and I were the only ones home with him at the time. Luckily the babies were asleep so they weren't in the way. He fell downstairs. He does laps (just slow ones to keep his circulation up) and was just walking around the family room when he fell. I won't go into the details but it took Mom and me about 30 minutes to get him up. I tried calling a couple of neighbors whose numbers I had memorized but neither were home. He was hurting pretty good so I didn't want to leave even long enough to run upstairs to grab phone numbers to call anyone else. In hindsight (which we all know is perfect) I probably should have. Dad's polio leg gave out on him after he used it to kick an exercise ball out of his way. Luckily that same exercise ball broke his fall and kept him from hurting himself worse than he did. He is pretty scraped up. He hit his head on the exercise bike and had a pretty good goose-egg. He also took a little skin off his nose and off both knees--but he didn't tear up his pants! He is pretty sore today but I think the thing that hurts the worst is his pride. This stupid post-polio (I won't give it the dignity of capitalization) is such a mean disease. It is not logical at all. It's not like polio--that if you work the muscles they get stronger. It is the opposite--kind of. You can't just exercise and work your muscles and make them stronger. In fact, most of the time if you do that--you weaken them. It doesn't make any sense. You don't want those muscles to atrophy but then you don't want to kill them off either. Anyway, we so are grateful Dad didn't break anything or hurt himself worse than he did. I think we have now talked him into using his walker or cane most of the time. Dad has a checkup with his heart Dr. tomorrow afternoon that was already on the schedule before he fell, but I'm sure he would love to talk to you if you have a minute. Take care all--and keep Dad and Mom in your prayers. Love you all, N.