I slept better than I have since the fall (in the recliner) and woke up thinking I was much better, because I didn't hurt while I was in the recliner, but getting out to the recliner was very painful and now I hurt as much as I did yesterday.
I remember when my BIL had open-heart surgery, it was impossible for him to use his arms to push himself up to get out of a chair until his chest healed. My sister would stand in front of him, take his hands and pull, so that his legs were doing most of the "push" to get up. Is your pain mostly in your ribs or your back?
Ribs, back and a stiff upper lip. With that stiff upper lip thing going on Ken might start using more vowels.
Here's some info from "Bob and Brad, the Two Most Famous Physical Therapists on the Internet." And this is an interesting article; apparently you need to try to breathe deep to keep from getting pneumonia with a rib injury. CLICK!
@Ken Anderson That would have been a nice taste of recovery.....just a taste....it will be quite some time, be patient, ribs are hard on the recovery time. Little steps, you probably jarred your whole body when you fell. Do you have a railing on your stairway. Easy does it.
Thanks again, everyone. I think I'm getting better although it doesn't feel like it. But although I feel like I hurt as much as I did yesterday, I am able to do things that I couldn't do yesterday, such as grinding coffee. I use a manual grinder and the act of grinding the coffee was too painful yesterday. For that matter, it was hard to even lift a coffee cup yesterday, and that's not the case so much today. As one pain subsides, another takes its place. My lower back hurts now, and I wasn't feeling pain there yesterday.
Glad to hear you are improving, Ken. My guess is ... your lower back is complaining because you've been making adjustments in the way you do everything else, and it's not used to it.
The increased amount of sitting time, even with a higher back injury, usually causes my lower back to hurt. Sounds like you are doing great. Do you have any lateral shift? If so work it out best you can before sitting.
First ribs then low back. Kinda goes with the aging thing. As we grow older everything having to do with the human body seems to head further and further south. I met a guy who had a turkey neck that was so big he could use it for a bow tie and then a few years later it got so long that he started to tie it into a Windsor and tuck the rest under his belt.
Bruising usually feels worse a day or so before it gets better. So, even as you heal, they are terribly sore. Just use it as an excuse to do absolutely nothing.
An annoying thing about falls, when you get older, are the assumptions that people make about them. I have never gone to the hospital as a result of a fall before, but I think it's fair to say that I have fallen quite a lot in my life. Usually, it has to do with tripping over vegetation, dead branches, and other things as I am walking through the woods, without a trail. Or I might slip on ice. Ella has tripped me up a couple of times on the steps, although I didn't hurt myself. However, once you get older, doctors always ask that question. "Have you experienced any falls since the last time you have been here?" I think it's fair to say that pretty much everyone falls from time to time, particularly if they are working outdoors, or exploring overgrown woodlands. However, when you're an older person, the assumption is always that there must be something medically wrong with you if you fall. If I answer, "Yeah, I tripped over a stump on my land a few days ago," the doctor will dutifully record this information, which isn't actually relevant to anything other than that I don't stay on the trails. I didn't pass out and fall. I didn't fall because my legs weren't working. I fell because I didn't notice one of the many stumps, logs, and other obstacles that are on my land, largely disguised by moss and other vegetation, or because I was looking at a snowshoe hare, or watching out for a moose or a bear, and not paying close attention to what my feet were doing. But no, after the age of sixty or so, you have to lie in response to such questions because the assumptions are wrong. The same is true of my last fall. I didn't fall because I was sixty-seven years old. I fell because I was going too quickly down the steps while wearing shoes that wouldn't stay on my feet. It might be true that I hurt myself during the fall because I was sixty-seven years old. If I were younger, my response to the fall might have been different, and perhaps a younger version of myself might have avoided falling all the way to the bottom of the steps, or maybe my body might have been more forgiving, but I didn't fall because I can't be trusted to walk down the steps by myself. The same is true of questions relating to memory. When I was 21 years old, I couldn't remember a telephone number long enough to dial it, and I can remember having to go outdoors and look at the curb (where it was painted) in order to answer a question about my address. Then, I was just someone who had trouble remembering numbers. Now, the assumption will be that I have Alzheimer's.
@Ken Anderson You've spoke the absolute truth and covered a lot of ground. Being at this golden age, seems to give doctors and the younger people a chance to blame everything on our age. There are many younger that experience much of the same downfalls, and they seem to think they have better excuses....so they think. .