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Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
To my surprise, I experienced a senior fall a few months ago. I call it a “senior” fall because I lost my footing for no apparent reason, unlike my 75-year-old partner, who tripped while running in the shade with dark sunglasses on, stumbling over a tree root he couldn’t see. Anyone would have fallen under those circumstances.
A few days later, I returned to the site of my accident, hoping to find uneven pavement or a dip in the sidewalk – any explanation for my fall – but there was nothing. It seems I had simply tripped over my own two feet, the conventional type of fall that many seniors like me understandably dread. I don’t want to be an alarmist, but this type of fall can potentially lead to severe consequences, even death.
If I weren’t so traumatized, I would have found my fall hilarious, worthy of a Charlie Chaplin skit, with him tripping and landing flat on his face. As I began to fall, I stumbled five or six paces in a panic, trying to regain my balance, but with no success. I finally lurched toward a traffic light pole, managing to grab it. Whew! Safety at last. I’d experienced a few moments of terror, so I felt immense relief at having latched onto a solid metal structure. Unfortunately, this feeling was transient. I continued to stagger while clinging to the pole, circling it 360 degrees like a maypole until I eventually landed with a thwack to my head, my legs dangling over the curb onto the road. Even though I find Chaplin’s slapstick comedy humorous, it wasn’t remotely funny when it happened to me.
I was compelled to take drastic measures. If I didn’t take steps to become fitter, how could I change the likelihood that I would stumble again? I knew with great certainty that it would happen a second time if I did nothing to prevent it, potentially with more serious ramifications. I was being held hostage by my shortcomings.
Before I fell, I had been riding my stationary bike for months to ward off old age, pedalling furiously as if the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz were chasing me on her bicycle. Despite this exertion, my quad muscles remained weak. I knew I could eventually improve their strength, but progress was snail-like, and I was nowhere near the fitness level of cyclists. I’m referring to the silver foxes who look so young in their skin-tight black spandex shorts with thighs as thick as tree trunks. I gawk at them while they wait for the traffic light to change. After months of biking in an attempt to outrun my mortality, my legs were far from reaching my goal. As I age, I can easily lose muscle mass, but it’s more difficult when it comes to regaining it.
There was no denying it: if I wanted to be the captain of my body, I had to hit the gym and pump some iron. I hated the gym during the few times I went 35 years ago. I loathed sports growing up, always being chosen last for teams in school, consistently striking out at bat, and being by far the slowest to run the mile around the high school track. I even failed gym in Grade 9 – an impossible feat for most, but I managed to accomplish it. (Getting caught smoking behind the high school while my gym class was playing field hockey could have been a contributing factor.)
At the gym, I soon realized I wasn’t competing to win the 100-metre dash against a group of gazelles with wings for feet – as I had in my youth. Instead, I was competing with myself. I felt immense pride in surpassing the person I had been the previous week, who could only lift eight-pound dumbbells. Going to the gym triggered a domino effect: I began eating healthier, which, for the first time in my life, came easily to me. I treated my body with the respect it deserved, resisting the temptation of fast food.
I soon began incorporating planks, squats and lunges into my routine with fierce determination. I approached family members, asking them to squeeze my upper arms and poke my stomach to appreciate the thin layer of muscle that had seemingly appeared overnight. I could not contain my pleasure at having a body that functioned as nature intended. Gradually, I started to gain weight – imperceptibly at first but more noticeably as time progressed. I gained weight by increasing muscle mass and not from overeating.
However, outside the gym, I still felt hesitant and fearful about walking. Like some seniors, I had become a shuffler, believing that if my heels and toes remained in constant contact with the pavement, it would lower my chances of falling. I couldn’t have been more wrong, which was probably why I fell. I needed to relearn how to walk mindfully, concentrating on heel-toe and heel-toe until it became second nature again.
With my new outlook on life, I needed a new motto, so I stole one from a 1968 advertisement: “You’ve come a long way, baby.”
Louise Dwerryhouse lives in Vancouver.
