SECOND SNOW OF WINTER

‍I was surprised when I took out the dog last night that we had our second snow of the winter. Really just a dusting so it shouldn’t affect us even here where if they even see a little bit of the white stuff they want to start canceling everything… because they don’t have enough equipment for the roads mainly, and people don’t really know how to drive in hazardous ice/snow situations except the people that live closer to the mountain passes where they get lots of snow. It has been a cool winter with not long periods of rain as would be expected, and I sometimes post comparisons where we’ve been a lot cooler even than Erie, Pennsylvania which doesn’t seem correct at all. I haven’t been posting or writing as much except to Facebook, mainly political stuff, recently because of either issues with Isabel’s mental health — today, for example, we’re starting a change in her meds and that can be a roller coaster ride sometimes and a crap shoot to see whether it works and changes things for the better or worse.

Also we went out this week to the waterfront in Seattle, thinking we’d have a nice day of it, even though it was cool. We took Juana (my sister-in-law) and we thought it would be an opportunity to get some air and a change of scene and maybe pick up some food at a restaurant and give Wookie also an opportunity to stretch his legs and have a different experience than he’s used to day in and day out. We got to the end of a walkway in one of the parks along the waterfront and we were thinking there were stairs to get down to continue the walkway behind where we were to go on to another adjoining park, but when we got there I saw it was all large rocks that were positioned so that someone could, with care, go down them like a rustic uneven stairway. I was controlling Wookie with the leash and I asked whether they thought they could make it and they both said yes. Juana got down easily and unscathed and she is known for falling frequently, but she made it fine, and I was looking at Wookie or something, and the next thing I knew Isabel had gone down off the rocks and was lying on the sand at the bottom writhing in agony and crying out. I think it was a combination of her slipping and getting used to some progressive lens glasses that can cause some distortion when you’re looking down. I got down to her immediately and gave Wookie to Juana. I could see right away that Isabel’s ankle was ballooning up immediately and she was in great pain and unable to walk. She was also turning very pale and in the cold I was worried she might faint. I feared that she had broken her ankle, but if not it was a bad sprain and it would surely mean our day was ending in terms of ‘fun getaways’ …we were also going to go to the nearby Seattle Center Park and walk around there by the fountain. Fate got in the way so that none of that was going to occur that day. And what a drag because we hardly ever go out in pandemic times so we were really looking forward to it.

I was kicking myself for not saying when I saw these this rocky would-be ‘stairway’ set up that it looked more hazardous than we needed to attempt given our age. There were a set of normal stairs not 20 ft behind us that we could have easily gone back to take, and I’m always the cautious sort, but I didn’t jump in and make that decision and we paid the price for being just a little too ‘reckless’. I’m usually pretty good at seeing the potential for accidents and making moves to avoid them. So I kicked myself for not being at the top of my game and Isabel having to suffer as a result.

Anyway, in the area where we had walked, probably two blocks long by the water next to Puget Sound, there is no access by car except for emergency vehicles. I had parked at the mouth of the park on Alaskan Way where the waterfront businesses started. My original thought had been to try to get the car back to Isabel and put her in it, but that was not going to occur, so I looked around to see if I could get some other help, maybe a John Deere motorized cart that I’d seen some landscapers using…thinking we could somehow put her in the back, but I didn’t see any of those at the moment. I therefore decided just to call 911 to request an ambulance/ some paramedics to take Isabel either to the hospital or to the car. They responded quickly and were very kind too…they had a little bit of trouble getting the big ambulance back there but they did they put a compression air splint on her and drove the two of us back to the car and we put Isabel in the back seat and drove to Valley Medical Hospital emergency room where they tended to her, x-rays and exam, gave her a boot and crutches. They discovered that there was a small fracture but nothing major and just told her to stay off of it, not putting any weight on it for some days, and use the crutches, the boot and ice. It’s been three full days now I guess, and I’ve been attending to all of Isabel’s needs and she’s been in bed working on her puzzles on the phone, watching true crime and YouTube music contest shows, keeping up after her eBay account, and talking to two of her siblings on the phone. The only two with whom we communicate still. I’ve been pretty homebound as a result of this too, even more so than usual, and have not been able to concentrate on anything except her needs and keeping the house in order and taking care of Wookie who’s old and a little bit confused by all these changes. It can’t figure out why Isabel’s in bed all the time and what crutches are for.