There is a lot of falling that happens here at the Lodges; more than you would think, I’ll dare say. I fall in love, repeatedly, with Dylan’s cinnamon biscuits. I also fall out of love with said biscuits when I get on the scale. Falling out with builders, tilers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters and Uber drivers happens frequently. I fall apart when a special patient passes away, fall from grace when I lose my cool during a disciplinary procedure, and fall short when I can’t answer the existential questions of a grieving family. Promises made to us by suppliers sometimes fall through and we fall silent when we see how the human spirit is able to overcome the most traumatic of experiences, physically and emotionally. I love how Jodi and Jess’ vision, and my dream for patient care, continuously fall into place, fall in step with each other and that we don’t ever fall out. My favourite falling is of course, asleep and I hate falling behind, but do it anyway.
Apart from all this falling, there is a lot of other falling that takes place which results in people ending up with us. By far the most common kind is older ladies taking a tumble and fracturing their femoral head, which results in a total hip replacement. Another very common occurrence is that patients go straight home after a shoulder surgery (often a replacement), as medical aids do not pay for post-shoulder-surgery recovery, and patients have to recover one-armed and off balance at home. This often results in another hospital admission when patients lose their balance and take a fall. Right now we have a delightful lady with us who broke her ankle after trying to balance with her arm in a sling after her shoulder was replaced. We have seen some serious face plants and impressive bruises because of this too. Sadly, many elderly people and those suffering from Dementia get confused and fall out of bed, or forget they need to walk with walkers and walking sticks, and then end up in a heap. My own mother of 85 is at the end of her tether because I am forever shouting for her to walk with a ‘kierie’ and not storm ahead at the speed of light like she usually does.
Now and then we have the mind-blowing falls after which we are totally gobsmacked that medical teams were able to put the people back together again. We had a beautiful blonde with us who, after a few drinks, went down a “foofie-slide” and fell 4 meters. She broke her tibia and fibula (shin bones) of both legs. We had an American who fell off the platform just before a bridge dive in Zimbabwe and broke her femur into what resembled pieces of meringue. Another blonde (I am hoping this is not a common thread) fell off her horse, smashed her pelvis into pieces and had to have her bladder reconstructed. (She now often sends me pictures of herself riding, as she literally got back onto the horse the minute she was allowed to).
Some of our worse falls are without a doubt dog-walkers. (I am a blonde dog-walker and this might not be a good combination). We’ve seen people who have properly face-planted and end up with colourful bruises and some nasty broken bones. I spoke to a matron at Sunninghill Netcare last year and she shared that on average 3 people die per annum in the hospital related to falls caused by walking a dog! The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says that of the people who survive dog-walking-falls, about 8% result in hospitalisation!
Our most spectacular fall ever was Nathan. Nathan is a typical Dutch citizen: tall, fair, good sense of humour, heavenly accent. He is also a commercial diver and at the time of his injury, was stationed on the offshore oil fields in the Gulf of Guinea. He finished his rotation (FIFO – fly in fly out) and was on his way back to Schiphol, staying overnight in Côte d’Ivoire. He went to the hotel bar for a beer… and that is where his memory ends. The next memory was waking up in ICU in Abidjan in excruciating pain a day later. Nobody knows what happened in the hours between the beer and a hotel guest finding him in the foyer of the hotel gym with a severe compound fracture of his femur with the bone sticking out past his hip! Nathan was medivacked to Johannesburg and everyone agreed that amputation was the only solution. The incredible orthopaedic surgeon told me later that this was the second worst fall he has ever seen in his life (the worst was a man who plummeted from a helicopter.) Nathan’s leg was saved. It was an astonishing achievement by the medical team.
When I fetched Nathan, he was so sick of being indoors after weeks in hospital that he pleaded with us to push him to the lodge from the hospital rather than drive him the short distance. Of course, we obliged, and from that moment Nathan became family. He was here for three months, healing physically which was painful, but that did not compare to his emotional trauma of not knowing what really happened to him. Was his beer spiked? And if so, why did no one steal anything from him? How did he fall? Why was he targeted? Why did it happen to him? Would he be able to walk again? Would he be a cripple? Would he be able to carry on with his career?
We never found out what happened to Nathan or why he sustained his injury. I speak to him every few months and he recently sent me a video of him proudly completing a half marathon. We were not there when Nathan fell, but it was our privilege to be part of the team that helped pick him back up again.
That is, I suppose, what is most important: not that we fall, but that we get up again; that we surround ourselves with those who will pull us back up, keep encouraging us and lift us up to where we once were – or perhaps even beyond.