Falling

Some times I fall. If you read my recent post about my Muscular dystrophy  then you would remember that I said that at times I will fall.

This is usually broken into three parts:

1) I have been walking and something has gone underneath my feet, big or small, and knocked me off balance.

2) I have a certain amount of foot drop and if I haven't lifted my foot properly then I trip myself up.

3) I twitch; either just one muscle in my leg or a full body twitch.

Well as many of you saw yesterday between Instagram, Twitter and Facebook I had one of my falls. But I wanted to talk about it a bit.

As my MD post states I twitch. The subsequent action is then to drop, throw, move with whatever part of my body is twitching, When it is my leg through it buckles under my weight; despite weighing very little!

Sometimes though I get, what I call, full body twitches. This is when more than one muscle decides to twitch at once. This limits what I can do, how I can land, or where I can move at that time. You could for the sake of arguments just yell timber, as I will just topple.

This is what happened on Monday.

I was lucky, I twitched and fell and hit a table, just a small corner, and I think my glasses took the brunt of it. Yes, I did say I am lucky, it could have been worse.

The falling part doesn't actually bother me too much; apart from some mild embarrassment if someone is around when I do it.

Even the struggle of getting up or needing someone to help me up, that too doesn't really bother me.

It is the split second of falling that I hate. I don't know where I will go, what will happen, what I might hit, it is just falling. No control, nothing to do apart from just fall.

The only way I can describe it is like the feeling of falling when you are asleep. That jerk, that sensation and that bit of fear.

See with the full body twitch I have no idea what else is twitching too; internal or external. I have no idea in that moment what will happen.

Yet, this I suppose it is the risk that I take; I could avoid the falls if I went into a wheelchair. 

I would hope all those who read my MD post will see why I don't want to go down that route yet. I can still walk and that's exactly what I will do.

It could have been worse. But then again I am pretty lucky and have never really done any damage; apart few stitches here or there and a sprained ankle but that's nothing.

(I was even hit by a bus where I twitched in front of one and just walked away with a few bruises. Lucky and tough.)

I do fall a lot more than I would say publicly but it's moments like this that I feel I need to share. Not through pity but more that I want you to see the physical affects of what MD can do.

So after the fall I am left with a lovely black eye and bruising. Again, I don't mind. But from now on I didn't have a fall, I think we should stick to the story that I stopped a mugging of a war veteran against 6 massive guys. I rescued that poor chap and this was the result of my heroic behaviour; what do you reckon?