Fear Of Falling...PO Day 111

In 1982, three physical therapists, Bhala, O'Donnell, and Thoppil, working with elderly patients who had an exaggerated fear of falling, were looking for a word to describe the condition. There wasn't such a word so they created a neologism, a new word, ptophobia.

Well, I'm not prepared to refer to myself as elderly and I don't think of my worry about falling as exaggerated, but I certainly do have a fear of falling again. It would be a foolish person who did not recognize the consequences of the careless moment that brought her to the present state of being. It continues to amaze me that such a brief lapse in attention can have such long lasting, permanent repercussions.

So yes, I wear more sensible shoes theses days. I think about where I am stepping. I walk slower, a little more deliberately. I hold the railing going up and down stairs. I make two trips instead of one with arms too full of stuff. And now I have a word to describe my feeling.

I'm not sure how you pronounce ptophobia. My best guess? "toe-phobia." Like ptomaine or ptosis or Ptolemy.  Does that suggest the toes are the root of the problem? Were they not fulfilling their responsibility, keeping one balanced? I do think it unfair to stigmatize them as if they were careless or inattentive. Or is it true, like the child's game "this little piggy," that perhaps their focus was elsewhere the day I tripped, fell, and broke my proximal humerus? Was someone thinking of going to the market and not doing his job?

Well, I know what I am thinking... my fear of falling is in no way exaggerated.  I'd do a lot to avoid a fall like the one I had fifteen months ago.


        http://youtu.be/JcMrHhWHi6A             




Archive timeline: 2014: May and June - preparing for surgery, July - surgery and post op problems, August - recovery and physical therapy, September - thinking medically.