G. K. Wuori

Oof.
It’s a word from the cartoons.
The spelling is perfect and no exclamation point is needed. A soft oof, that’s what it was. You remember these things, the small details – my head, too, hitting the ground, the grass soft, consciousness never even threatened. But the oof, that’s the thing, that push of air out of my lungs hard enough to make a gentle sound across my larynx.
I’d fallen, that’s the thing.
A neighbor lady, not in good health, scrambles over to my porch, my ladder, my unctuous person lying on the ground. I’ve felt things I’ve never felt before, so much so that the idea of feeling humiliated never enters my mind (my son will later ask if he can find it anywhere on YouTube: my family’s always a tough room to play).
“Are you all right?” she says.
Oof.
I’d been up on our porch roof washing some windows. The extension ladder rested firmly against the roof at a proper angle. The job finished, myself descending, I even made a safety note to myself: hands under the rails, always, not on the rungs.
On the last rung before the ground one foot stepped down on the other, a common misstep on a ladder. Feeling awkward, unbalanced, I simply jumped.
I was not on the last rung.
I was on the third or fourth rung.
“That’s why we call them accidents,” the orthopedic tech in the emergency room said.
Taking most of the fall on my right leg, I hit the ground.
“Are you all right?” the neighbor lady asks again.
One takes inventory at such moments. All bones seemed intact, even the knee that, on impact, had given me a feeling – not a pain – unlike anything I’d ever felt before. Large grass stain on the right leg of my jeans. Washable.
“I think I’m okay,” I said.
I stood up. A good sign. I took a step. I fell again.
The neighbor lady fetched my walking stick from the back porch and I somehow hobbled into the house. My wife and daughter came home, my daughter just visiting for a few days. They’d been to see her grandmother.
I said, “I think maybe I ought to go to the emergency room.”
Since my wife had to work, my daughter took me over to the ER (the second day in service, by the way, of the brand new hospital in town).
The initial assessment and X-rays revealed no broken bones. I was sent home taped up with an immobilizer on my leg, crutches, and the advice to hit the ice and the ibuprofen and do a follow-up visit to an orthopedist.
I did that the next week and met with an M.D. who was also a sports medicine specialist – a good choice since I likened my injury to a really nasty tackle in a football game.
Although he, too, confirmed no obvious bone break from the X-rays, he didn’t like the swelling or range of motion of my leg. An M.R.I. was scheduled for the next week.
Prior to and following the M.R.I. my body began rebelling in its own way over all this discouraging news. The swelling in my leg and knee began to subside, the pain all but vanished as a constant, and I was able to walk, using one crutch, fairly freely.
Hey, maybe I’ll just be able to …
The M.R.I. was not good. Lots of damage to what my daughter-in-law (a physical therapist) termed the terrible trio: anterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament, and the meniscus.
Surgery was scheduled, a knee arthroscopy where they insert a small camera into the knee area, then wander around with tiny tools fixing things.
I decide never to wash windows again.
A pre-op medical exam with a physician reveals that all my systems can handle a general anesthetic (or at least better than they could handle the surgery without an anesthetic). A pre-op visit with the surgeon brings out a great deal of confidence on his part that I can return to my pre-fall state (unlike, say, Adam and Eve).
I decide never to climb a ladder again.
Still, it has been decades since I’ve had surgery of any sort so the prospect is depressing. So is the prospect of walking around like Long John Silver for the rest of my life.
Chin up, dude – truly, it wasn’t bad. About all I remember of it was being shifted from a gurney to the operating table, then watching as three nurses, two doctors, and the anesthesiologist bustled about getting things ready and then … I woke up.
There have been weeks, now, of physical therapy with the slow return of mobility and, increasingly, certain “normal” motions. The immobilizer and the crutches have been put away; the Vicodin used up; and only the occasional dose of ibuprofen and the use of an elastic bandage are needed.
All of which proves conclusively that the iron monger isn’t made of iron. But I kind of knew that anyway.

G. K. Wuori © 2007
Photoillustration by the author