Year: 2023

I went to work one morning and didn’t have any idea of what the day had in store for me. I was a caregiver. I went into people’s houses and helped them. On this particular morning, I was transporting a woman to the doctor. She was sleeping and leaped out of bed and said,” “let’s go.”

She started walking fast down the hallway with me running behind. I had never been in this house before. The next thing I remember was sitting on a step almost on the floor of a garage.

My ankles were turned backward but there wasn’t any blood. The woman put a blanket over me and we waited for the ambulance. It wasn’t long but it felt like forever. The ambulance people had me stand up and take a couple of steps to the gurney. Then I was transported to the hospital. My life had changed.

My ankles were x-rayed and to my horror, I had broken three bones in each ankle. The next day I was in surgery and my ankles were loaded with hardware. 15 screws and a plate in my left ankle and 2 screws and one plate in my right.

Not being able to walk I had to learn how to transfer myself from the bed to a chair and a portable toilet. I transferred myself from the bed to a wheelchair using my arms. I stayed in the hospital for a week and went to a rehabilitation hospital. My life was now in a wheelchair.

I worked with the physical therapist daily to straighten my arms as well as my core stomach muscles. I will never forget when the therapist and I went outside. When I graduated to a walker she said, “stand up and walk up the steps.” I stood up and put my foot on the first step. I couldn’t believe it. I was hanging on to the handrail for dear life. I couldn’t bring my weight to pull myself up one step. It takes a lot of strength to walk up and down stairs. You use your hips to walk upstairs and your knees to walk down. I flunked that test. After that, we worked for a week on strengthening my hips and knees to walk up and down stairs. I was in rehab for three months and finally went home.

Copyright Linda Meckler 2023