I am remembering hundreds of examples in my life of waiting for the inner signal  that I should make a move. I want to tell you about one time when my kids were ready to kill me for my inaction and it turns out that the good Gods were protecting me. So, the usual old lady story. "When I Broke My Hip".


I had taken a walk around the Richmond, CA waterfront with Randie and her daughter. We went to the parking lot and debated going onto the sailboat where I was living. She decided that Iris was too tired and they had to go home. We were loading up her Volvo station wagon when I balanced on something unstable and crashed to the tarmac and knew at once that I had broken my hip.

I got a nice guy and his girlfriend who were passing by to be my human crutches and refused any ambulance and demanded that I be taken back to the boat. They helped me get into my boat bed and left. I made a few phone calls including my friend Karen who came to help.

The phone calls from those who cared about me came frantically. "Get to the hospital, you are crazy, you need help." I was in shock and didn't know where to go and all I wanted to do was drink some tea and curl up as best I could and think in the morning. Nothing anyone said could make me budge. I couldn't see a clear action.

In the night, going to the bathroom, holding the railings, I put a tiny bit of pressure, a tiny bit on the bad hip and then I had a lot of information. I had such a pain, I almost puked. Yes, the hip was broken. The next day, we got the advice to go to the nearest hospital. What did it matter? I had no insurance and was a month away from the start of medicare. The dock neighbors put together a wagon filled with pillows, lots of ice and took me to the hospital.

Here comes the good luck in the bad luck..the reason I say the Gods were helping me by making me hesitate. Many hours later...many...as they were scheduling me for transport to a hospital where they would do the surgery, the night shift came on. A new radiologist and new bone surgery guy and a new emergency room doc conferred by SKYPE and offered me a change of plans. The break was clean and nothing had shifted and if I chose I could keep immobile and let it heal itself. I chose that option. So, I was out of the hospital with a broken hip that night.

There is a wonderful story for another time about how many many friends came together and nursed me, entertained me, fed me, and helped me deal with the fact that I had to miss my plane to Spain. (Air France never would refund my $ because I didn't have an operation) The hip healed perfectly. It is stronger than ever, and 100,000 and more people who had hardware put in their hips at that time have had to have several more operations to fix and remove it...The big class action lawsuit against Johnson and Johnson for faulty materials. OK. I don't know if this proves anything about there being a method in my madness. I do know that I count myself so lucky that medical action was delayed until that new team came on and saw another option.