There comes a time when you have to face the inevitable. It’s not always grand and it’s not always glorious. I have found the need in the past, oh, six months, to occasionally need a walker to be able to get places. Sometimes the walker is useful for lifting my lower back from my hips — the reduction in weight significantly relieves the lower back pain. The walker is also useful for keeping me steady. With a walker, I can walk a mile or more. Sometimes without the walker I can’t walk 500 yards.
This is doctor appointment week–Neurologist yesterday and family doctor today–and they both said that I’m at the point where I need to keep a walker by my side at all times. Walkers seem expensive when you start looking at prices you can find deals. Walkers are things that seem to free up every so often. I found one at a Good Will; my physical therapist gave me one that another of her patients couldn’t use; and a couple from church gave us a tall walker that I can rest my forearms on without slouching. He even added blocks to the armrest to make them high enough to be comfortable for me (I’m 6’2″ and the walker is rated for up to 6′).
So I keep the tall walker in the car for when we go places; and other three walkers are on each of our floors at home (downstairs, upstairs, and attic). So that works.
It’s going to take a while to get used to it. I have questions. Like, how am I supposed to carry a cup of coffee and negotiate pushing the stroller. I’m worried a little that the high walker is a bit top-heavy, and I notice it when the handicapped curb ramp isn’t quite smooth at the junction of sidewalks.
I also have to figure out where to put it when I go to meetings like at church or with the Writer’s Club I’m in — and I’ll have to find a place to store it while doing yoga and tai chi (and painting classes and line dancing and (in a few weeks) ballroom dancing. (BTW, the Apex Senior Center is great great great.) Just sayin’.
We’re going to a family wedding next month — my sister’s daughter — and I don’t think I walk anybody down the aisle or anything like that, but I guess I bring the walker with and then put it to the side — or maybe I stay at the side with it. My grandkids don’t quite know what to think about all this.
But they know that I’ve had two falls that have taken me to ER. That’s two falls too many, and they don’t want to see any more. I don’t either.
Having the walker in the kitchen while I was cooking was kind of a pain. I’ll get that figured out. I have to think of it is a dancing partner instead of a roadblock or hindrance.
Good news …. the neurologist did say it could be years before I’m wheelchair bound. I’ll take that.
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