So, this morning, I woke up at 8am, wanted to roll over and go back to sleep but then my bladder woke up too and wanted to be emptied before I was allowed to carry on snoozing. My husband had woken up and gone to the gym early, so I was alone in the house. So I heaved my legs off the bed and levered myself into wheelchair and went to the bathroom. Stood up, did 90 degree turn so had my back to loo, and both knees suddenly gave way & I was quickly and painfully, on the floor. Kind of sitting on one of my bent knees. It took me a couple of minutes to untangle my legs etc. difficult in itself. But then the major problem struck: I can’t stand up by myself. But I tried; in some ways the bathroom’s a good place to attempt standing from the floor, there are several grab bars, there’s a shower seat as well, which is lower than the wheelchair seat (as is the loo itself). So I had a go at getting up onto the loo, I wedged my feet against one of the shower seat wheels, used a grab bar and the loo to support/pull on, pushed my bent knees together and tried to haul myself onto the loo seat. Didn’t work. My right knee just collapsed back to the floor and that was that. I tried again, a couple of different ways, all failed. So my next challenge was to somehow get out of the bathroom to a phone. (At this point I tried to release my bladder as that was a better option on the wet room floor than on the carpet in the bedroom, but no go, my bladder is nothing if not inconsistent!) I had to somehow shift myself, on my bottom, past the wheelchair, out of the bathroom, round the corner, along a short hallway, across a bit of carpet, to the bedroom where there was a phone. I can’t get on my knees to crawl, so I had to inch my way bit by bit, I took the hand towel with me to sit on across the hall floor so I could slowly scoot backwards. Eventually I made it to a phone. Leaned up against the bed and phoned my lovely husband. He asked what was wrong, I pitifully said “I’m on the floor”, he grabbed his gym bag and dashed home, thankfully only 10 minutes passed before he was home. We took a scarf, tied my knees together, so they’d stay in place, and together manage to to get me onto the bed. The whole thing had taken about an hour & ten minutes. I then went back to the bathroom and had a wee.
What id really like to know is, if my bladder could wait more than an hour, why didn’t it let me just go back to sleep till he was back from the gym? Why did it insist on getting up while I was alone in the house?
Needless to say, instead of having a leisurely shower, and washing my hair, like I planned, I just washed my face and got dressed. My right knee hurts where it went down heavily, my arms are truly knackered from all the hauling myself around, and I just want to go back to sleep. But at least I didn’t cry, just whimper and whine a bit!
Its actually been a while since I hit the floor, I’m super careful all the time when manoeuvring round the house. I may have sat down heavily (often) and there have been several near misses but it’s been months since I was actually on the floor and couldn’t get up. So maybe I should stop moaning and be glad he was only 10 minutes away (I am happy we live in the mobile phone age) and also I am truly thankful that I have such a lovely man.
Well it’s done me good to have a good whinge. Thanks for listening.
Sue