More on the Fall into the Drainage Ditch

Got a concerned email from a dear friend about my mysterious fall into the drainage ditch the other day after sunset but before dark. Here's what I wrote her.

Image: the scene of the fall - it's about 2.5 ft wide.

Young people fall in those things too. But of course it's much more likely as we age because our sense of balance, our gyroscope, can go south and sure has with me. I read once that falls make up a high percentage of emergency hospital admissions here. That's the first time I had a fall since five years ago when I had about five in a row. Oh I forgot a bad one in 1920 getting up to pee in the dark which I talked about in my first podcast and reposted by itself later (Nyepi Blood Bath). That was either a slip on a small bedside rug (actually a Muslim prayer rug) or fainting from fasting the day before. 

If you watch the wonderful 1988 Ring of Fire series about Indonesia by the Blair brothers with a fifth episode made recently, you'll learn that Lorne Blair died at the age of 49 after falling into an opening on the side of the road in Legian. 

Sidewalks here are often uneven as heck (Just do an image search for "Bali-sidewalk holes"). Katrinka and I walk on the side of the street when there are no cars coming. The streets are pretty good. Deep gaps in the sidewalks are normal here when there are drainage ditches running under them. Often someone will put a pole with some cloth on the end of it in the opening as a warning The one I fell in was on the side of a street with no sidewalks. It's just across from where our dead-end gang (alley) runs into that street. 

I am seeing an internist on Monday to look at a new blood test mainly to see if my thyroid glands are better balanced and I'll tell her about it. I assume that I got too close to the edge because a car was approaching and slipped in, but I could have been hit just a bit from behind on the right calf by a motorbike going by as my right calf was one of the three places that hurt afterword and it was swollen. The others were head and shoulder - but none hurt bad. And of course I could have just fainted. Since I have no memory of falling it could any of them. I don't think this calls for a bunch of tests though, not unless I have more falls with memory loss. The sunrise is happening now and I've already had a walk today. I'll walk a few more times and do yoga. Swim tomorrow. I'm so careful when I walk anywhere actually, especially on stairs and I go up and down steep stairs in our home quite a bit - very carefully. It's all like a never-ending mindfulness test.

thanks Louise