Thursday's Tumbles and Stumbles: The Raccoon Mask and Seeing Red

Well I really did it this time. It was an epic stumble and almost tumble if there had been more space. It could almost be categorized under the results of sleep deprivation or not walking will under the influence of medication.

Have you ever sleepily made your way into the bathroom in the middle of the night and dozed when you did your business? I think we all have at one time or other. Have you ever momentarily forgotten how you got somewhere? A brain fart moment? Has medication ever hit your system harder than you expected? Okay, now you have the set up for this week's stumble.

I awoke sitting on the commode. Did I have to pee or was I done? How did I get here? My AFO was on correctly, so I must have been awake long enough to do it. I find I had already finished the chore that I went to the bathroom for. I try to  push forward to rise and my legs don't want to cooperate. "Okay Jo, get it together.  There is a comfortable bed waiting for you. Alley Oop."
I manage to stand and both legs feel like they are made of Jello. I reach forward for the towel rack for support. The beauty of having a 5x7 bathroom. My hand misses the mark.

I pitch forward, more like stumble. The bridge of my nose smashes into the ceramic towel rack and my head pile drives into the wall behind it. Imagine cartoon stars circling my head. If I thought I was dreaming earlier, I was wide awake now, by God. I grabbed the hand towel which was conveniently catching the blood and held it to my nose. I sat back down on the toilet seat and leaned my head back. Ah, the joys of all the muscle relaxers and blood thinners I'm on.

Now the normal procedure for stopping blood flow from the nose is to put pressure near the bridge of the nose, but I wasn't touching it. It hurt too bad. I balanced the towel under my nose and reached for the cold water tap. There's one thing good about having a deep well for water. It's always cold. I put the washcloth under the tap and then wrung it out. I replaced the hand towel with the cold washcloth. I seemed to sit there forever waiting for the blood to stop, but it was more like five minutes.

Finally, the blood stopped.  I got myself cleaned up and wobbled off to bed. I awoke again a few hours later to give my husband his morphine  and went back to sleep thinking I had dreamed it all except from the pain radiating from the small goose egg on my forehead. Back into bed for a few more hours sleep as is my custom.

I awoke later to tiny paw taps and quick flicks of a rough tongue. My furry alarm clock, Lil Bit the cat, has no snooze button. She taps me with her paw and licks me until I get up. She'll wait while I don my sock and AFO always within a paw's and tongue's reach of me in case I doze off. She knows me too well. We have a regular morning routine now since my stroke.

I glanced at myself in the dresser mirror as I passed. Jerking back to stare at my reflection. I saw raccoon eyes and a bruised goose egg on the right side of my forehead. The battle trophies from the night before. Okay, so the circles around my eyes were more of a purplish-grey than black, but still a shocking sight upon waking. There was a definite knot on the bridge of my nose so I think I might have broken it. It's straight so I'm not going to worry the doctor with it. It's all tender to the touch and I'm suffering the after effects of old aged aches and pain throughout my body as I usually do after being hard on my body. The face will heal, but I wish it had improved my looks (as cute as a raccoon) instead of me looking like I'd gone a few rounds with a boxer. Or even had been able to say that I'd had a nose job instead of saying I got this from getting off the commode.

In other news...
I say this news report and saw red a week or so ago on CBS. The story was about a nasty note left on the vehicle of a handicapped person. You can find the news story here.  I've had a blog about handicapped parking before and I've even left messages for people who don't belong in them too. This was so cruel that I was seeing red after I viewed it. It never ceases to amaze me the cruelty of people. It was so disrespectful and down right mean spirited. It makes me want to throttle to writer with my cane!

How has your week been?