Day 34 (I think)

The maddening stay at home time continues. Not much happens when you cannot go anywhere on your own.

For my birthday and our anniversary, we usually go to this fancy steakhouse. This year, I viewed it differently. It has two levels. Each level requires stairs. There is one small section on the second level that is set off from the rest of the place. We were seated there. Unfortunately, there is no restroom there and to access one, I would have to negotiate at least 15 stairs - up and down. Because of that, I only had one glass of wine and tried not to drink much water. I was pretty proud - three hours and I made it. For me, that's a record. Two glasses of wine would have been nice as it was awesome wine, but I really couldn't see myself negotiating those stairs.

Being bored out of my mind, I was going out to the garage to take the dogs out. Our garage is not attached, so I have to negotiate 5 stairs, three levels of a deck and a 75 foot sidewalk to get to it. It was rainy and I was careful to dry the crutches off when I got to the polished cement floor of the garage. Apparently, I didn't do it well enough because I was crutching in and the right crutch just went out on me. I fell, landing on my hip hard. I really don't know if I hit my foot or what. Today my wrist, back, hip and neck hurt, but I feel lucky to not have broken something else. The foot feels a bit different and the toes are a little more swollen than previously. I hope beyond hope I haven't messed up this foot.

This makes two times my crutches have slid quickly and unexpectedly out from under me. I did some research on that and basically have decided I need new crutch tips. Apparently they degrade fairly quickly and I have used them for two separate surgeries. I decided to order these very expensive, as in $75.00 including tax and shipping, supposedly non slip tips. If they prevent one more fall, they are totally worth it. The company did not have expedited shipping so it will be a week until they arrive. At this point, I am nervous to go out on the old crutch tips.

Handy hints - first, make sure any restaurants you go to don't have lots of stairs. Second, replace crutch tips regularly. Some people say every two months.