When you get older you have to be more
watchful. You have to think, what could go wrong? Visit the doctor
more faithfully, don't drive when you're tired, be more organized so
the chance of error is reduced. And, most importantly, beware of
falls. Look before you leap. Keep yourself poised carefully on your
haunches as you push that trash can down those three steps toward the
street on Sunday night for the trash collectors on Monday. Falls are
far and away the most looming hazard as you get older.
And I should add that as you get older,
you get smaller as your spinal discs shrink as you lose muscle mass
and other mass. You lose one inch per decade, we were told at our
med school 50th reunion by our classmate Don Smith. I
tell people that I myself used to be 6'4” and played shooting guard
for the Warriors, although who remembers that now?
But I digress. I was talking about
falls, and prevention. Falling is an ever-present danger. My new
Blue Hen friend Jim Dean told us that every time he goes to the
doctor, the doctor's first question is, “Have you fallen?” It is
that present a danger. And we also know that most accidents occur in
the home – not surprising, since that's where we are most of the
time.
That was when I noticed how dangerous
our bathroom is. We have a deep tub, and that is where we shower.
Since the tub is deep, we have to perform a balancing act as we get
in and out. Stand on left foot, raise right foot high to get over
tub wall, stick right foot over tub wall to bathroom surface, place
it on floor, shift weight from left to right foot, pick up left foot
while balancing on right foot, pull left foot over wall, and place
left foot by right foot, at last standing on two feet. Perhaps
easier done than said, but still, imagine the hazard.
We were forethoughtful enough to have
made the surface of the tub slightly gritty, so that the danger of
slipping is minimized. But, and this is a big but, while you are
doing all this, there is nothing at all to hold onto. Well, there is
the sliding glass partition that keep the shower water from splashing
over the bathroom floor, but the frame for those two sliding doors is
fragile. If we were to slip and grab the glass doors, they would
likely fall down with us and probably shatter. Not much help there.
So I went down to our neighborhood
kitchen and bath rehab place, Custom Kitchens, and presented the
problem. My idea was that as we climbed in and out, we should have a
little grab bar on the counter surface just by the sink, which is
very close to where we step in and out. It would be unsightly, it
would take space, it would be hard to squeeze the grab bar into that
small surface, but it would be safe. The guy at Custom Kitchens
thought it could be done, I convinced Ann it was the safe thing to
do, and although it took months for the guy at Custom Kitchens to
actually get it together, we were ready to go. Safety over style.
Then, and this is the point of this
post, there was a switch of personnel assigned to our project.
Instead of Eric, Karmela came out to our house and was looking to
match colors and surfaces for the grab bar. And then, as she was
looking over the project, Karmela said, “You know, there's another
option here.”
She looked up from where the grab bar
would be and saw that the wall just beyond the end of the tub was
just close enough to where we stepped out that she could bolt a
retractable grab bar right into it. This retractable bar, or rather
a swiveling bar, would be vertically parallel to the wall when in
repose, but then when we were ready to use it, we could pull one end
of it down so that its length was now perpendicular to the wall –
that it, it stuck out from the wall just where we could grab it as we
exited. Then it would unobtrusively pivot back up vertical again
when we had stepped out, unobtrusively out of the way. Saving the
counter surface where the original grab bar would have been, making
it look much nicer, preserving precious space in our small bathroom.
Now here's the point. Believe it or
not, there is a public policy aspect to this short story. When I
exclaimed wonderously how great Karmela was, and she felt proud of
herself for coming up with this graceful solution, she told us: when
she had gone through her testing to get her license as an interior
designer or whatever her qualification is, she had had a task: design
a bathroom for a handicapped person. And that is where she had come
across a similar solution that she was now applying to us.
A certifying board? Qualification for
this rather mundane near-profession? Isn't that just more
bureaucracy, designed to keep competitors out, to glorify a job?
Isn't this one of those 500 plus boards that have proliferated in the
state, that supply sinecures for political supporters to be appointed
by the Governor? Isn't that the waste of big government?
Haircutters, nail polishers, things you've never heard of, all
certified with so-called standards?
You might well say so. I might well
have said so. But no more. Sometimes, just sometimes, things work
the way they are supposed to. Bless you, Karmela, and bless the
board which qualified you. We will now step in and out with both
safety and style.
Who says the days of big government are
past? Not I.
Budd Shenkin
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