I COULDN’T GET UP

I couldn’t believe how weak I’ve become. Scared the hell out of me.

I FELL & COULDN’T GET UP – © LYON 2026

When they built this house, someone thought it was a good idea to make the bathroom door narrower than a regular door. My walker is too wide and unwieldly to get inside. So I have to park it, edge into the doorway sideways, and gimp myself into the room.

Then I reach out with my left hand for the bathroom door handle – which I lean on until I can get my hurty right hip/leg to move into the room enough to reach out with my right hand to grip and lean on the edge of the sink. Then I can squinch my way to the toilet, and sit down.

So last night, I need to pee, right? I park Mr. Walker, place myself in the doorway Just So, and . . . somehow, my hand slid across the door handle and right off into blank air.

I lurched forward heavily, my hand still extended, my body sliding down the door, down the wall – ending up on my side, my face planted on the rug, my legs askew.

It was so strange, feeling it as it happened, and observing it happening, all at once.

It was lightning fast. Yet I remember it as if it was the slowest slo-mo film ever. Inch by inch, feeling the texture of the door, and hearing my shirt slide down the wall, seeing the floor come up, and then feeling the flump of landing, and the crumpled rug beneath my face.

As I went down, I heard myself make a grunty kind of unnnhhhh sound, like unverbally yelling shiiiiiiiiiiiiit all in one garbled groan.

What surprised me was the sound of my body hitting the floor. Not a crash, not sharp, or loud, just a smothery kind of FLWHOMP . . . and then silence.

At first, panic surged like fire through my body. And rage! How did this happen???

My heart beat like a drum. My bones trembled. I couldn’t focus – my eyes kept darting back and forth, side to side. My breath rapid-fire in and out, short, jerky.

I don’t tether my phone to my hip like most people, dragging it room-to-room just-in-case-someone-calls-or-texts, so I had no way to call anyone.

I watched as my mind tried to pull me into terror. Thoughts flashed by like “What will I do if I can’t get up?” “No one can hear me in this insulated center-of-house room, and neighbors are too far away.” “What if I really can’t get up? What if my legs won’t work? What if I die here? What if no one finds me until I begin to stink?”

What if – what if – what if –

Isn’t it amazing that, after thirty years of being a mindset coach, my mind still wanted to revert to panic? Hah! Not for long. I heard my voice order, “Shut UP! Shut up, and get centered!”

I laughed then.
Took a breath.
Settled.

I made my mind a blank.

You can’t get where you’re going unless you know where that is.

Up. I just wanted to be up.
OK, destination noted.

First – was I broken? Nope. Sprained? Nope. That’s good, I thought, let’s see if we can move the legs.

I stopped. Wait a minute! Who is this ‘we’?

By this time panic was long gone, and the joke of hearing all these voices made me laugh again.

The I can’t get up one
The let’s see if we’re broken one
The shut up and center one
The what if I die here all alone face-planted in the rug one –

Quite a crowd! From the Deep part of me, I heard another voice – calm, quiet, and so commanding that I felt it in my blood. The Big Voice.

Shut UP! it said. Or rather, it whispered. So powerful it didn’t need to shout. The voices shut up.

The Big Voice said, OK, breathe now.
They/we/I breathed.

Centered. Acknowledged I wasn’t broken. Knew I could get up, even though it was going to be an extraordinary effort – a funky excruciating hip-leg-back thing on top of the laziness of 30 years of sitting in front of a screen – mmm. Yeah.

I raised my face off the rug. The one I designed, and didn’t like anymore and hadn’t replaced yet. Made a note to do that this week. I had lint all over the side of my face. I’m not the best house-keeper –

Saw the wash cloth on the tub – reached out and grabbed it, put it where my knees would be when I tried to bend them to get up.

Creaked slowlyslowly up on my knees. Having nearly 100 pounds of extra flash makes it hard to kneel – the extra smooshed to the side, making boney knee on hard floor despite wash cloth padding feel like kneeling on shattered glass. Cried out in pain. Tears.

Gritted my teeth. Pushed up with my right arm, maneuvering to get my left arm free. Slowlyslowly, laughing screaming in pain, “I hate being so damn weak! I can do this. Shut up you stupid naysayers . . . .”

At the halfway point, it seemed impossible. I was dizzy, my eyes closing with the pain in my hip, a kind of silent humming coursing in my ears. I wondered if I could do this one stupid thing, or if I was doomed to lying on the floor desperate for non-appearing help.

“You should just give up,” one voice said.

“You can lie back down and take a nap and try again later,” another mumbled . . .

Good grief! Where did all these helpful idiots come from? I yelled at them, “Get out! Get out! I don’t know where you came from, but go back and stay there and never return!”

Have you ever heard mice in a wall? Inside your own head? That’s what it sounded like! I almost collapsed back down I was so astonished.

But they left. And it was quiet. And the Big Voice said, “Well done! How about getting the rest of the way up now?’

So I took another breath, tried again. Pressure in my lungs – realizing I needed to breathe out – dizzy – nothing to grab for support – right hand flailing –

Somehow I saw myself as if I was outside my own body. I was actually getting up! I was shocked to see little tiny sparkly points of light darting and dancing all around my body as I hollered my way to my feet. Panting. Red-faced. Heart careening against my rib cage. Sweat drenching my face.

I did it!

I just stood there, drinking in up-ness. Never have I appreciated being vertical as much as I did in that moment.

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Now it’s the next day, and my knees are crazy sore. The side of my face is a little bruised. The elbow I landed on got smooshed a bit, but no serious damage. I’m amazed nothing else got hurt. And that I actually got up!

While it was such painful adventure, it woke me up to things I need to take care of.

I took that rug out of the bathroom and put another one in that I like better.
I made a list of legal things I need to do to my advanced-life-directives – I’m way out of date.
I need to research power-of-attorney stuff, since I read recently that social security won’t honor some kinds of POA.
I thought of getting one of those old-people alert necklace things, and decided not to. If I die, I die. So what.
And a few others . . .

I started getting back into yoga last night before bed. Why wait for tomorrow?

And it bolstered my confidence – knowing that even despite great pain, even if I’m 800 crickety years old, I can still do what it takes to get on track if I fall off. Hah – literally!

New directives: clean up my eating, get back into yoga, and a little weight-lifting –

Because I refuse to be a wobbly wet-spaghetti-legged Old Person!

When I do die, I shall be an Amazon. Hear me roar!

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