October 17 - Using White Canes

October 15 was International White Cane Day and this year the day was a strong reminder for me as to what can happen when I am not using my cane. Basically, I wasn’t using my cane...and I tripped...and I fell!

Lyle and I are in Australia again – this time for a family wedding.  The wedding was in Sydney last weekend and so this week we are enjoying time by the ocean.  On October 15, our son and daughter-in-law joined us and we walked along our favourite beach in the area.  Now, I don’t use my cane on the sand, reasoning that there are few obstacles and that if I do happen to fall, there will be a soft landing. Following our walk along the beach, we drove to a lighthouse lookout.  Lyle and I have been here before and I knew that the walk to the lookout was paved and easy going and I didn’t take my cane. This was a mistake!  It was on the way back that I fell.  I was walking full of independence, and as it turned out also full of foolishness, when I fell face down onto the concrete pathway.  Without my cane, I was unable to detect the piece of timber that had broken off from the side of the path and caught my right foot.

I have no recollection of falling. Simply put, one minute I was vertical and the next instant my head crashed into the immoveable footpath.  I didn’t quite black out but I could feel the blood dripping over my face.  When I rolled over, my son the doctor, albeit a psychiatrist, told me that I would certainly need a stitch or two.

Lyle drove me off towards the hospital. Our accommodation unit was en route so we were able to stop for ice on the way.

The care I received at Gosford City Hospital was prompt and efficient.  I am truly grateful to all the staff there but especially to Dr. Zack.  His bedside manner was caring and calming – just what I needed.  He attended to my head wound and cleaned the other various cuts and abrasions on my arms, hands and feet. To tell the truth, I didn’t even feel the tetanus shot when the needle was given. The only puzzling bit of the neurological exam was when I was unable to see or track Zack’s moving finger. However, he deduced, and I hope correctly, that my brain was still functioning as it should.

I want to take the opportunity to thank Dr. Zack and wish him well on his career path to either surgery or plastic surgery.  How lucky was I that he was the one who drew my name in the emergency room roster.

It is already two days after my fall and I am still taking some pain medication.  I think that the pain in my chest, the tenderness of my head wound, the stiffness of my shoulders and torso, and the stinging from the cuts on my hands and feet will continue to remind me for some days to come of the necessity of using my cane.  Had I been using the cane, or at the very least holding the arm of the person beside me, my fall could have been prevented.