MaLinda had a great, if not humbling, idea for a column this week.
The title, “The Reddell Shuffle.”
This long standing gait in which I walk, has landed me at Methodist Hospital with a broken upper right femur.
My shuffle has previously had me tripping on floor rugs scattered throughout our home's mostly ceramic tile floors.
Jessica and MaLinda are forever citing “Pick-up your feet, don’t shuffle.”
It’s my daily morning ritual to make coffee for MaLinda and myself in the pre-dawn hours of the morning in efforts to have coffee ready when we finally get moving at 6 or 6:30 a.m.
Well, this week I shuffled into the kitchen via the den only to find that after 16 years, I managed to miss judged the 2-inch elavated step into the kitchen area.
As best I can remeber, the ball of my foot caught just right sending me hurtling into the kitchen.
All the while I was worried about my head hitting the cabinet more than the actual fall.
Well, I did hit the cabinet, with my forehead and managed to scrape the top of my head in the process.
But, unfortunately, the real damage came when I landed on my right femur and broke it in two places at the top near where the hip replacement enters the length of body's longest bone.
I couldn't get up and started yelling for MaLinda promptly at 5 a.m.
She helped me get up and into the bed.
Around 8 a.m. MaLinda suggested we proceed to the emergency room.
She could obviously see the swelling and felt the feverish heat on my upper thigh.
Since my previous orthopedic surgeon was in Sugarland we decided to proceed to Methodist Hospital there.
Currently, that’s where I'm typing this week’s column on MaLinda's torturous laptop.
Like with any hospital visit, I’m gifted with a number of ever-growing interruptions from nursing staff and other Methodist staff that have me anxiously waiting to go home.
However, that doesn’t seem to be happening this week!
That leaves me filling my free time with TV and all of its assorted commercials between physical therapy appointments and cafeteria food style room service.
At the same time I’m missing home - not just for my bed or DVD movie collections, but also my family.
That also includes all of our pets - even the chickens.
