There was a time when getting up from the floor or the ground outside meant nothing to me. It was as if I just had to press an internal switch and then - Boing! - I was up. But it is not like that these days.
Just this week I was lying on the floor with Baby Margot. We were playing with baby toys and smiling at each other but when I tried to press the internal button in order to give the "Get up!" signal, I discovered - not for the first time - that it is just not working any more.
Instead of leaping up like an uncoiled spring, I was left floundering on the floor like a beached sea-lion. It was only when I managed to find some leverage on the coffee table and sofa that I was able to pull myself up with noticeable physical effort and some porcine grunting sounds.
Outside our house there is a public grass verge which I have tended for the past thirty five years. Mostly there's no need to get down on it but in the middle of it there is a young magnolia tree which remains staked for stability. My "Bosch" lawnmower cannot get in to cut the grass between the stakes so I have to get down on the ground with my garden shears to trim the grass there.
All very well and good until I have to get up again. More grunting while using the stakes to pull myself back up. What a pathetic sight!
When did this happen? I cannot pinpoint the point in time when I achieved this disability. Rising from the floor or ground used to be so easy but now it is so hard. It is quite possible that my life will end this way - gracelessly thrashing about on my back or belly - pathetically calling for help or some kind of leverage.
Is this what it means to be seventy? Perhaps the social services will happily provide me with some sort of mechanical hoist for emergency occasions. Alternatively, there may be a number I can call in order to receive the services of trained lifters.
Know the feeling!
ReplyDeleteAnd you such a young fellow too Bob!
DeleteYeah, well, as they say in the motherland "The tooth of time ...". I am younger than you and totally fit but boy oh boy oh boy - getting up from the floor is becoming, sometimes not always, a challenge. Need is the mother of invention. Vorsprung durch Technik. We have ways ...
ReplyDeleteThere we were, the Angel [that's my son] and I having a picnic in the woods of the New Forest, offering a beetle hurtling past us to adopt it, and then I tried to get up. All dignity left my remit. Luckily, the Angel - who is of a calm disposition - pulled me up as elegantly as both of us could muster. As I have since found out, not that it's any comfort to either you or myself, as you get older the oiling between the joints gets thinner. Give it a few more years and your grandchildren will be strong enough to come to your rescue.
Next stop? What are surprises for if not to surprise you?
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A couple of years ago I flew into Sydney on a domestic flight with and there was no airbridge so we had to go down stairs and onto the tarmac. Half way across the tarmac a knee just didn't do it's job and I fell flat on my back. On the tarmac with nothing at all to lever myslef up with. Add to that I had on a backpack so I felt like a stranded turtle. It is still referred to as the turtled on the tarmac incident.
ReplyDeleteYou have my full sympathy but also, you can get stronger, make friends with the floor!
Did any of those helpful airport people rush to your aid Kylie?
DeleteThe flight attendant who was with me called for assistance and eventually I got vertical!
DeleteI know that! I crawl around on hands and knees like a toddler in the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteThis would make a great photograph.
DeleteSeventy and you can't get up easily. Wait a few more years . It gets worse.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement Red.
DeleteAm I naive in thinking there must be some exercises one can do to improve this particular aspect of mobility?
ReplyDeleteThere probably are but who does them?
DeleteOh yes. I always hesitate to search for items on the bottom shelf at the supermarket as I know I shall struggle to stand up again.
ReplyDeleteSupermarkets should supply senior shoppers with modified litter pickers so that we can access those bottom shelves.
DeleteSadly it seems to be a problem that afflicts most of us as we age YP - you're not alone.
ReplyDeleteRecently I slipped on loose gravel walking down a steep path in an open air restaurant and one leg twisted under me and down I went. No-one about to help (apart from the dog) and I had to crawl across the gravel and hoist myself up by a nearby railing - luckily it was there or I'd still be trying to get up!
I never foresaw such difficulties when I was a young whippersnapper.
DeleteRemember all the times I boasted about getting up off the floor without trouble or assistance? Just this year, all that stopped. I can still get up, but not as easily and a lot of the time I do lean on or hold something for leverage. At the twins house I crawl to a nearby chair to haul myself up off the floor.
ReplyDeleteThat would make a great photograph. Grandma crawling to a chair!
DeleteI completed understand. I am there too. I can remember being in a hardware store that actually served you and a young man got down on his hands and knees for me. When he stood up to show me his goods, he grabbed hold of a shelf as he felt dizzy. The same has happened to me for years.
ReplyDeleteFloors and the ground outside are best avoided by mature people like the two of us!
DeleteWould you call them on your mobile phone?
ReplyDeleteNo. Because I haven't got a mobile phone and I don't know their number.
DeleteTypical East Riding obstinacy. I didn't want one either, but got one as a sensible item of safety equipment. Like I mentioned the other day, you go out on your own in lonely places. Doro 1030. Text and calls but NO internet.
DeleteThe number is the same as Shirley's.
DeleteI have to put my reading glasses to see if it's shampoo or conditioner.
ReplyDeleteThe joys of aging!
DeleteI always end up laughing, then crawl to the nearest chair or bed. Being small it never hurts if I take a fall. Haven't resorted to one of those button things you hang round your neck yet though.
ReplyDeleteIt happens to me, too, Neil. I just Googled it and there are many videos about how to get back up so we are not alone!!??!!
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain. The apple watch has a falled detector in it, that when turned on will call for help when needed. You would be surprised how many older adults are gifted them by loved ones, without telling them that it will call the lifting service when needed.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have noticed that I have started thinking about exit plans before putting myself into certain situations. My neighbor…. Not so much. I’ve had to go over and help hoist him off the ground.
ReplyDeleteWith a bad shoulder and neck problems since way back, plus one increasingly unreliable knee, I do my best to avoid the floor/ground... There comes a time in most of our lives, I think, when have to accept that we might benefit from the help of certain technical aids and tools and safety measures, even if we have hitherto rejected them. - I don't have a garden but my mum in her senior years had a very practical garden(ing) stool that one can either sit on or turn around and use when kneeling (and then the "legs" serve as handles to make it easier to get up again). Myself I have a couple of grabber tools to pick things up from the floor, and in general try to find alternative ways to do things rather than getting down "too low".
ReplyDeleteI've suffered from the same problem for the last couple of years. Getting old ain't easy.
ReplyDeleteFor years, in the states, there were commercials for an alert necklace that people could wear around their necks to call for help in such situations. They featured an older woman saying, "I've fallen and I can't get up!" That line subsequently became the punchline to a lot of jokes, of course told by young people! Maybe you had those ads in the UK too.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, I suspect this happens to all of us, given enough time!
Yup, it's part of growing older. I've had this problem for many years now and then just the other day I was so proud of myself for rising from a chair without using my hands! That's rare as my legs have grown weaker through the years. Welcome to old age, YP!
ReplyDeleteGuess you've joined the oldies club, welcome!
ReplyDeleteI'm genuinely thankful you blogged about this, YP, because I thought most, if not all. of your readers (plus you) would still be getting up from the floor with ease, and I am not. I feel less alone now. That being said, there are lots of internet physio sites that give simple exercises to improve agility and strength as we age. I've been following a few, and am now trying to improve the abilities I lost over the years of being too busy and too stressed with my mother's care to keep myself in shape.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had no idea what you're talking about.
ReplyDelete