It's slick out there so.....
I have new method of walking outside in the winter.
My head is bent toward the ground.
I take tiny steps.
It feels a lot like Tim Conway's Old Man character on the Carol Burnett show -- you know the sketch I am talking about it -- and how he use to sloooowly shuffle across a scene.
It is slow going and I am ok with that.
Here's why. I don't want to fall.
I fell in September after attempting to text while walking and sniffing natumeral gas for two hours at a breaking news scene. I won an award for the story and six weeks of physical therapy for the fall.
A friend of mine at work slipped without ice and had to lay in her driveway for an hour before someone stopped to help. She broke several things and was off work for six weeks and is still recovering.
I think I can speak for the both of us when I say recovery is painful and annoying and humbling.
Apparently we are not alone. This is from the CDC.
So really my Old Man shuffle is justified.
And I will go to any length to avoid another fall. I will make an elaborate detour around what looks like something slick. I carefully use the car door as a stabilizing measure. I thought briefly today of actually getting a cane for stability but knowing my luck the cane would go askew and that would bring me down.
A woman who works with senior citizens told me this summer how much she admires older people because they are constantly having to adapt to new realities as the world around them changes and their bodies don't work like they once did
After my fall, I understand that concept a lot better. (So, Mom, you are more idol more than ever.)
I have decided no precaution is too cautious. I sometimes rub my foot along the ground to judge the slickness of a surface before moving forward.
Last week faced between a three foot high pile of snow between me and a parking meter I mentally measured the height of the mound and the appropriateness of my shoes. I examined the depth and ice content of potential footholds like a rock climber and decided to ask the nice blue collar guy in the well worn coveralls who was the feeding a meter three feet away if he would mind putting my money in for me.
I might as well have added a "thank you sonny."
But he was kind enough to do it for me so I continued my careful, tiny-stepped march down the sidewalk to my appointment. This is a very different kind of behavior for me. In my 20s I carried both a box springs and a mattress up two flights of stairs by myself instead of asking for help. But you know live an learn.
Here is a all kinds of information about menopause and bones and falls from the Cleveland Clinic
but I will give you he bullet points.
As we age bones get more brittle. Hormones...damn hormones....are to blame in part as are estrogen levels. It is important to do thing that that we should all do for our health as we become older women.
Exercise, eat right...you know the drill. It's also important to talk to you doctor about help to maintain bone density.
So I'm going to do that. I hope you will too. Until that time I will shuffle on.........
Shout out to our reader (readers) in Brazil...where I'm pretty sure they don't have to do the Old Man shuffle on the ice but are still proof that Menopause is Universal!
Mary M.
17 countries and counting.
And now to confirm my semi-old lady status. Here is a random picture of my cat. He is looking content because he is literally laying on top of my dog.
I have new method of walking outside in the winter.
My head is bent toward the ground.
I take tiny steps.
It feels a lot like Tim Conway's Old Man character on the Carol Burnett show -- you know the sketch I am talking about it -- and how he use to sloooowly shuffle across a scene.
It is slow going and I am ok with that.
Here's why. I don't want to fall.
I fell in September after attempting to text while walking and sniffing natumeral gas for two hours at a breaking news scene. I won an award for the story and six weeks of physical therapy for the fall.
A friend of mine at work slipped without ice and had to lay in her driveway for an hour before someone stopped to help. She broke several things and was off work for six weeks and is still recovering.
I think I can speak for the both of us when I say recovery is painful and annoying and humbling.
Apparently we are not alone. This is from the CDC.
Balance and bone density decline significantly between the age of 40 and 60 and this age usually coincides with menopause. Some sobering statistics are that:
- 1 in 5 women will fall each year before they reach 60
- After 65 years 1 in 3 will fall each year
- Women over 80, 1 in 2 will fall each year
- 1 in 2 women 50 and over will suffer a broken bone (fracture) due to a fall in their remaining life-time
So really my Old Man shuffle is justified.
And I will go to any length to avoid another fall. I will make an elaborate detour around what looks like something slick. I carefully use the car door as a stabilizing measure. I thought briefly today of actually getting a cane for stability but knowing my luck the cane would go askew and that would bring me down.
A woman who works with senior citizens told me this summer how much she admires older people because they are constantly having to adapt to new realities as the world around them changes and their bodies don't work like they once did
After my fall, I understand that concept a lot better. (So, Mom, you are more idol more than ever.)
I have decided no precaution is too cautious. I sometimes rub my foot along the ground to judge the slickness of a surface before moving forward.
Last week faced between a three foot high pile of snow between me and a parking meter I mentally measured the height of the mound and the appropriateness of my shoes. I examined the depth and ice content of potential footholds like a rock climber and decided to ask the nice blue collar guy in the well worn coveralls who was the feeding a meter three feet away if he would mind putting my money in for me.
I might as well have added a "thank you sonny."
But he was kind enough to do it for me so I continued my careful, tiny-stepped march down the sidewalk to my appointment. This is a very different kind of behavior for me. In my 20s I carried both a box springs and a mattress up two flights of stairs by myself instead of asking for help. But you know live an learn.
Here is a all kinds of information about menopause and bones and falls from the Cleveland Clinic
but I will give you he bullet points.
As we age bones get more brittle. Hormones...damn hormones....are to blame in part as are estrogen levels. It is important to do thing that that we should all do for our health as we become older women.
Exercise, eat right...you know the drill. It's also important to talk to you doctor about help to maintain bone density.
So I'm going to do that. I hope you will too. Until that time I will shuffle on.........
Shout out to our reader (readers) in Brazil...where I'm pretty sure they don't have to do the Old Man shuffle on the ice but are still proof that Menopause is Universal!
Mary M.
17 countries and counting.
And now to confirm my semi-old lady status. Here is a random picture of my cat. He is looking content because he is literally laying on top of my dog.
