It has been an unusual Easter holiday for us. I was folding laundry one afternoon and I fell suddenly to the floor unconscious.
My husband was in the next room and came running to find me passed out the floor. Our daughter, Therese, arrived home from college at the same time, and they decided to call an ambulance and take me to the hospital.
In the morning I woke up strapped to a bed, attached to all manner of hoses and wires, with the staff asking me to explain what happened.
I had no clue as to what happened, but my husband and daughter filled them in. Which was so embarrassing that I regretted hearing it out loud.
The next morning, I woke up in a flimsy hospital gown open in the back with a stiff breeze blowing through. I ordered breakfast, just so I wouldn’t get demerits from the staff. I asked for blueberry pancakes and juice.
The next days were a search for the right diagnostic tests and guess work.
So far, we haven’t gotten an answer, but I have started with physical, occupational and speech therapy and various exercises. I started out like a house afire and succeeded in pulling every tender muscle in my back. Now It hurts to breathe.
And needles? Can I tell you? I had so many shots there was barely any healthy tissue left.
On the brighter side, at the hospital I did not have to cook, straighten the beds, do laundry or mop the floor. Oh, and they hooked an alert to my saline port in case I tried to walk to the toilette by myself. This was a strict no-no.
I was escorted there and back with someone walking by my side. Seriously, I begged for privacy, but If I slipped and fell while walking to the john unescorted and I spit out a couple of teeth, someone could get in real trouble.
When Easter day dawned mild and sunny, our grandson, Ben, bounced in with a sheaf of multicolored tulips for me, kissed me distractedly and ran outside. We had a ball watching our nearly four-year-old grandson running around the yard, talking to himself and looking for hidden Bunny Baskets.
Too soon, it was time for him and his parents to start driving back home to Brooklyn, with Ben and his mom curled up in the backseat and dreaming of sweet sugar cookies. No, wait. Check that. We ate so many sweets that day our teeth stuck together, and we couldn’t unhinge our jaws to brush.
I knew I should have studied dentistry.
The spring weather and April showers have finally arrived, and we can all go out and re-plant the flowers we killed last summer.
Come on. It could be fun!
And I’m pretty sure it is safe.
The other thing we have to keep us busy is three family weddings. We have three scheduled, all in South Jersey, and all three were postponed last year by the coronavirus.
We feel lucky to celebrate the weddings with everyone present this year.
Best of all, I’m healing now. As my mother would say, in her New York accent, “with the help of Gawd.”
