“When you have your health, you have everything.”
That’s a bromide I heard from various relatives while growing up. I ignored it until its basic truth hit me this month.
I was out on a story on a sunny Saturday, at the walk light at Mass. Ave. and Park. It changed, I stepped and my legs went out from under me. Next thing I knew, the faces of five people circled above, asking if I needed help. I guess I did. I couldn’t move my right leg. Pain shot up.
They pulled me to a step at the UPS store. Some had seen me fall. I didn’t recall stepping on ice, but I must have. My right foot was turned out at an odd angle.
Some among the five wanted to call my wife. “No,” I said. I knew she and one of my daughters were driving to New Jersey just then to see Marjorie’s mom, 96, and I didn’t want to worry them.
An Arlington Fire and Rescue, out of Highland, showed up quickly. One of the crew, Gary Stratton, whose grandfather’s name is on the school in the neighborhood we were passing through, asked me to straighten my right foot. I couldn’t.
They got me to Winchester Hospital, where an X-ray showed a broken hip. Later, in a room, blissfully dosed with painkiller, my wife and daughter showed up — a pleasant surprise, but how did they know?
An amazing network of Arlington people had gone to work. Someone among the five had recognized me and had contacted one of our friends, who then called my wife, having lunch in Connecticut. They came back home.
As I write, nearly two weeks after falling, I have had successful surgery, learned how to manage YourArlington while in bed, progressed in rehab at Sancta Maria in Cambridge to knowing how to put my clothes on when I can’t bend my right leg. Crutches, a walker will get me around home for months. No driving. No night meetings.
That cliche about having your health? These experiences have given me a clearer appreciation of its truths. They have also suggested so many to thank:
— Dr. James P. DeVellis, the surgeon who repaired my hip with 13 staples;
— The variety of physical-therapy folks at Sancta Maria, who have guided my limbs — and thinking — in fresh directions;
— The self-described Arlington “nit-picker,” who continues to scan YourArlington copy for errors, which increased recently in the light of bed-ridden laptop story creation;
— ACMi, which allows me to report about public meeting by watching TV or on video streaming (sorry, Advocate);
— Peter Guralnick, the North Shore biographer par excellence of Elvis who I do not know personally, but whose latest work, Sam Phillips, the Man Who Created Rock ‘
‘n Roll, has kept me up at night; and
— My family — my wife, Marjorie Howard; our two local kids, Emily and Sofia; Chris, my son, near Atlanta — all of whom have been there for me in so many ways, but none more so than Marjorie.
I thank you all with an appreciation that I have once called corny — and now I might call “hip.”
This column was published Friday, Feb. 19, 2016.
