Falling Into Grace

I didn't blog yesterday and not one person checked to see if I was still alive.  Of course I talked to many of you on the phone, emailed, or sent telepathic messages that said "I'm Okay!  I'm Okay!"

Yesterday was another Mom Mom Mom morning and I was also having trouble finding a topic to blog about that kept my attention.  Today in the news, Kirstie Alley fell down on TV.  Hmmm.  I'm not the only one having trouble finding interesting topics, I see.  My patients fall down frequently when we aren't in their homes.  They tell us three days later and say "but I'm Okay!  I'm Okay!"  But I still have to fill out odious paperwork and call their doctors.  The patients hate this.  How would they feel if every time they fell down it became national news?  It might decrease the number of falls significantly if they knew everyone in America would watch the video on YouTube.

While trying to help my patients not fall again, I often ask them how they fell.  Without fail the story begins, "Oh, it was so stupid..."  I did not understand that until a few years ago I fell in my driveway, on ice, and when I thought about it I said to myself:

Self, that was so stupid.

Then I said, "but I'm Okay, I'm Okay!"

But I wasn't and then I had to have shoulder surgery 2 years later because....well...that was so stupid.

Someday, though I will encounter some enlightened being who says, "It was a very smart fall." 

The smartest saying I've ever heard about falling is:  Fall seven times.  Stand up eight.

That's a Japanese Proverb.  The Japanese people need that strength right now.  Later today I'm taking Sierra to the bank to get her coins counted.  I think she has about $80 of her $200 goal.  Stand up tall and proud, girl.  And if you fall down, get up and keep going.