Yesterday
afternoon, while walking the dogs in the vineyards, the loop on the lace of my
right boot somehow managed to attach itself to the hook on my left walking
boot, and I went crashing to the ground. You know when you are young and
you fall, you very quickly jump up and brush yourself down, hoping that nobody
has noticed - that no longer applies to me as I just lay there, refusing all
offers of help, while I took stock of the situation. Luckily the ground
broke my fall (as Spike Milligan once said), but part of that ground included a
big stone which I must have landed on as by the time I managed to stand-up (or
allow myself to be pulled up!), I could already feel a large bruise on one of
my ribs.
The
ironical thing is that I had designated 2019 as my ‘Year of Health’ . Not
making huge resolutions that I would never keep but just deciding to eat more
healthily, exercise more, cut back on alcohol (not ‘dry’ january but ‘moist’
january), and more specifically, to sort out all the niggling health problems
that I had ignored for years. Even though I’ve lived in France for ages,
I still have the stoic British mentality that means I don’t even consider
seeing a doctor unless a leg is falling off whereas my french partner makes an
appointment at the first sign of a sore throat.
I have been very lucky to have been in ‘rude’ health for many many years
but it seems that once you get to a ‘certain age’, your body starts creaking
and letting you down, so to start the New Year off I made an appointment with
the village doctor. 
He
listened to my heart (still beating, apparently) took my blood pressure (11 over
6 whatever that means) and asked a few general life-style questions and then
sat down and started writing the equivalent of War and Peace on a prescription
pad. He seemed appalled that I hadn’t had a blood test for several years
(very regular here apparently) so that was added to the list. Following my trip to the pharmacy I left with
one of those ‘bags for life’, brimming with pills, products and potions - so
much so that I then spent some time sitting at my computer turning it all into
a spreadsheet so I could remember what to take or what to do at what time of
day, and for how long etc.
One
of the problems which I have ignored for far too long has been the feeling of
having blocked ears and it is now affecting my hearing, so many of the products
and potions were in an attempt to deal with this - allergy pills, salt-water
nasal rinses, nasal sprays etc. At the same time I have been following
some strange exercises I found on the internet which involve pulling
extraordinary faces to move the jaw-bone, and also pinching your nose and
blowing hard. Which brings me full
circle back to yesterday’s fall…… my
bruised rib only hurts when I move, laugh, cough or sneeze and when I
tried the exercise of pinching my nose and blowing hard it proved almost fatal.
At least being partially deaf means I can pretend not to hear my partner
laughing when he remembers my fall, nor hear him telling me that I should’ve
tied my laces better! As for my ‘Healthy
2019’ - I shall restart it when I am feeling better!
