471. Dangerous Falls

BROWDERBOOKS

I am now advertising with Google ads -- a new experience fraught with risk and hope.  Risk because I'm new to it, have to learn such esoteric terms as PPC (pay per click), KPI (key performance indicator), and ROI (return on investment), and am blundering ahead, confident that one learns by doing.  Hope because every time someone clicks on my ad, they will be transported to my new website's HOME page, where New Yorkers is featured, with a brief description and links to Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  At last report, 20.4K impressions, 55 clicks, but 0 conversions.  So the ad has been shown 20,400 times, 55 people have clicked on it, but no one has bought the book.  Well, it's early in the month-long campaign, so who knows?  And I'm launching a second campaign with a much better set-up, based on what I've learned so far.  Again, hope.  Good old battered but resilient hope.

      When my newly created Google ads account disappeared from my computer screen, taking my campaign with it, I consulted a Google technician  to recover it.  We worked all Thursday afternoon without results, then resumed on Friday morning and finally recovered it, but by then I was utterly worn out.  A closing upbeat note: the technician  said he had gone to my website, discovered New Yorkers, and is buying the book.


                   DANGEROUS  FALLS

Friends and blog followers who responded to the story of my fall, which toppled a bookcase, gave me such interesting, albeit alarming, accounts of falls of their own, that I decided to do a post on falls, including, with their permission, their own.  Here are their stories.  Understandably, most of these falls occurred to older people, though not all the falls are age-related; one can fall at any age, and for any reason.

A friend in Florida, retired, told me of three separate falls.

• As recommended by his podiatrist, he was wearing a protective boot on his right foot.  The boot caught on the leg of his bed, and down he went on the hard tile floor.  His left shoulder was injured and hasn't been the same since.  He can't raise his left arm.
• While taking a nap on his bed, in his sleep he rolled off the bed onto the floor.  No damage, just a startled awakening.  Now, when napping, he makes sure he doesn't lie near the edge of the bed.
• On another occasion, after taking a few sips of his first cocktail, he wandered out into his back yard (he lives in a duplex), set his drink down on a table, and walked over to a fence to say hello to his neighbors, who were sitting on their side of the patio.  Suddenly, to their astonishment, he keeled over.  Fortunately, he  landed on the grass, and not on the brick pavement he was standing on.  No damage, but a mystery: not intoxicated, no dizziness, so why the fall?  Was he tripped by the slightly uneven brick pavement?  He has yet to figure it out.

With three falls in the last two years, he is concerned.  Fortunately, there is a fire station nearby, so a 911 call brings them promptly to help him get back on his feet.

      Another friend tells me how, just after she retired from teaching, she was crossing 72nd Street at Third Avenue one afternoon, when she slipped on some gasoline spilled out on the street and fell on her right shoulder.  The resulting pain was so intense, she knew she had a serious injury.  Hailing a cab, she rushed to the Lenox Hill Hospital emergency room, where she was luckily seen at once.  X-rays revealed a fracture in the rotator cuff, but she was having guests over for dinner that evening, so she went home.  The following day she phoned her internist, who recommended a surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital, and she had surgery on the shoulder.

      When she told me this, I had never even heard of a rotator cuff, but some quick online research describes it as a group of four tendons connecting the shoulder muscle to the shoulder bone.  Injuries here are not uncommon, especially if one falls on one's shoulder.  Once again, I realize how lucky I was in falling: the bookcase got all the damage; I had only a slight scratch.  But my friend was lucky, too.  After surgery she worked with a physical therapist and fully recovered, except for occasional pain, if it is about to rain.  Then, when it rains, the pain goes away.

      Another older friend, who lives in Massachusetts in a house with four acres of grounds around it, tells how, when moving an art work to get things out of the way of a flood, he fell against it and demolished it.  He and his partner are aware of the risks of falling, seem to get clumsier as they age.  Well, who doesn't?  Join the club.

      Another really serious fall was told me by a friend who lives here in Manhattan on the West Side.  She had been taking photos of the sunset from a window in her apartment, then went to bed.  Later, she got up to get something from the kitchen, and went there in the dark, thinking she knew the way.  But she forgot that she had moved an ottoman in the living room.  Tripping over it, she fell on the hard stone floor.  She lay there for a while, aware of broken glass, blood, and a bruised face.  She thought of calling her neighbors, but in time got up, cleaned up the floor with towels, and got dressed, in case she needed to go to an ER.  Instead, she stayed up all night, icing her head, and contacted her children the next morning.  With a bruised face that hurt, she didn't go out in public for a long time, and to this day has a scar in her eyebrow.  She threw out the ottoman, and now has night lights on.  Still haunted by the memory of her fall, she relives it and talks to herself about it.

      Yes, my bookcase fall was minor, compared to some of these stories.  But I've had other falls, too.  I can remember tripping on something and falling on the sidewalk near a restaurant with tables outside.  Diners at the tables gasped, then asked if I was all right.  Uninjured, I got up quickly and assured them, "I'm fine.  I always bounce back."  In those days I did.  

       Another of my falls resulted not from age, but from carelessness.  This was years ago, when Bob was out of the city, and I was home alone.  To access something on a high shelf in my bedroom, I stepped up on a wooden boxlike structure enclosing a radiator.  The insecure surface gave way, and I tumbled down on the floor.  Stunned, I just lay there for a few minutes, aware of bruises.  The best thing I could do, I ecided, was to get to the bed and lie there quietly, taking deep, regular breaths.  With effort I got up, took a few wobbly steps to the bed, and lay down.  After fifteen minutes of rest and quiet breathing, my mind cleared, and I was fine.  A bruise or two, but nothing else.  Ever since, I have been careful, very careful, where I step.  Lying quietly while taking deep breaths has always been my short-term solution for physical mishaps.  It lets me clear my head, so I can deal with the situation.

      About three years ago, crossing the street in daylight, I fell and hit my face on the hard pavement.  No dizziness, so why I fell puzzles me to this day.  No one else was around to help me up, but I managed to get back on my feet.  I had a splotched purple face, a bruise or two, and a broken glasses frame (the lenses were intact), but no other injury.  The splotch concerned me, for in two months I would be exhibiting at BookCon, the big two-day book event at the Javits Center here in Manhattan.  A splotched purple face would be appropriate for science fiction and horror stories, but those genres I don't do, so I was concerned.  But slowly, with time, the splotch receded, and I had a reasonably normal appearance for the event.

      Yes, compared to some of my friends, my falls have not been serious.  Painful, yes, and sometimes with bruises, but no lasting ill effects.  But I know to be especially wary going downstairs and stepping off curbs.  And where there is no railing, I don't venture.

      Seniors are a stubborn bunch, often ignoring sound advice. When Bob was housebound with Parkinson's, the nurses and therapists who came to us had sad stories to tell of some of their elderly patients.  "She has fallen three times," one therapist told us, "but she won't hire a home-care aide.  She lives alone, and she's going to fall again.  But there's nothing I can do about it."  Yes, seniors can be stubborn, blindly and foolishly so.  Let's be reasonable, clear-headed, and careful.  We can't anticipate every problem, but we can have a plan in mind, should a problem suddenly arise.

Coming soon:  Bullies.

©   2020   Clifford Browder