Do you need help?
One of the many things that make life interesting is trying to figure out the correct answer to that question.
My standard reaction to the question would have been a mystified “huh” until the 28th of April 2021. What help?
That morning I got up from bed and promptly fell to the floor. Nobody saw it, so I don’t know what kind of style points I would have received for my undoubtedly graceful collapse. So I said “huh,” being an undiscovered poetic genius, and proceeded to pull myself up to a kneeling position. Then, leaning against the walls, I staggered into the kitchen.
Because one needs coffee, no matter what!
So I made coffee and staggered back to the bedroom. I sat down in my easy chair, holding my cup, which by that time was half empty. The other half had somehow been spilled. My right arm was suddenly weaker than it had been eight hours earlier.
Presumably, about at that point, the thought of needing help made its first unwelcome intrusion into my otherwise salubrious stream of consciousness.
Huh! I’m alive, no bones broken, no limbs torn off! What help?
I called the emergency number and said I probably needed an ambulance. One of my many questionable decisions was telling the dispatcher that I may have had a stroke.
I had not actually experienced the stroke happening because I had been asleep when it presumably occurred. In that situation, I did not have the presence of mind to let the professionals figure out what the problem was. Unthinkingly, I just fed them the code word STROKE, which helped them whisk me into a hospital with sirens blaring and lights flashing and do all the things they were supposed to do once the code word had been spoken.
Did I need help?
Well, I’m still stubbornly alive, and no bones are broken or limbs torn off.
I still think it is hard to know how to answer that question correctly. I have had to think much more often than before about how to answer it. I am better able to handle myself now, but I still have trouble making it look easy. Opening heavy doors. Lifting heavy stuff. The answer could be yes or no, depending on my mood, how much of a hurry I am in, or the phase of the moon.
When a neighbor recently offered to sell me some homemade rum, I politely declined because I didn’t think rum was the best stability solution. I made it sound like a religiously motivated abstention, which earned me a “God bless you, sir.”
So yes, the question of needing help still comes up in unexpected ways. No wonder I think life has become more interesting, just in general, and for no stroke-related reason at all.
Tell us what you think