Constant Vigilance

We’d been home from the hospital for less than four hours when Jennie fell.

Everything had been going smoothly. Even in the last couple of days at the hospital her mobility had improved by leaps and bounds. Eighteen laps around the floor her room was on was a mile, and she decided we were going to hit that goal, which we finally did the day before we left. Compared to the first time we’d walked one lap and she said it made her feel like she’d run ten miles, she was doing incredible.

The fall wasn’t a hard one. It feels like it happened in slow-motion. I turned the corner and she was going down, knees folding, a hand on the bathroom counter failing to steady her. I grabbed her as she slumped to the floor, trying to right her, to protect her head and neck, too slow to stop her head from bumping the wall. She would tell me afterward that her head never hurt from it.

We sat there on the floor for a moment and collected ourselves. It all happened so quickly, and then there we were, breathing, trying to calm ourselves. It freaked us both out. And we knew we were lucky that it hadn’t been worse.

For as long as I’ve been with Jennie, she’s hated when I offer to help with things. She wants to do things herself, which I completely understand (and, to be honest, as infuriating as her stubbornness can be, it’s also one of the things I love the most about her). My natural inclination is to want to do things for her, and I have worked hard (not always successfully) to tamp that down, to let her do things on her own, to not annoy her by trying to help.

I told Jennie when we were still in the hospital, as I was learning from the nurses how to do things like clean her surgery wounds and prepare her food and meds, that I love taking care of her. I really, truly do. But as soon as we got home I went right back to trying to stay out of her way, to giving her her independence and trying not to hover too much.

The fall showed me - showed both of us - that that won’t work for now. Things have changed, obviously, and just as Jennie’s needing to learn to ask for help, I’m needing to remember to be there to help even when she doesn’t immediately ask, just in case.

At a follow-up appointment yesterday the doctor told us that Jennie’s fall was likely caused by a combination of factors - medication, dehydration, low blood sugar - which is sort of what we’d figured, and we’ve made sure to be mindful of all of those things since then. I help her up and steady her when she stands. I follow closely everywhere she goes. I wait just outside the open bathroom door in case she needs me (I don’t go in with her for that - she still has some privacy). I told the doctor that I’ve been “annoyingly attentive” since then.

If that’s what it takes, that’s what I’ll be.