Annmarie Throckmorton, M.A.
- Jul 5, 2019

Tossing And Turning On Concrete And Gravel

No matter which side I lay on it feels like I am laying on an ill-kept road of concrete and gravel. Just a few weeks ago I fell into my bathtub and cracked my hip. I think that I leaned over to turn on the water, passed out, and the next thing I knew I was twirling into the bathtub. For a moment it seemed fun, like a released fish twirling back into swirling water, then my hip hit the porcelain bathtub, I cracked my iliac crest, and I felt the kind of pain that makes one nauseous. The good news is that it seems to be healing very quickly because the pain is lessening, either that or I am inured to it. The internet tells me that it takes eight to ten weeks for a cracked iliac crest to heal. It has only been two weeks so I am ahead of schedule, but my hip still hurts too much to sleep on that side.

I also have other sorts of much older injuries on every other side of my body that give me pain, so I truly have no side upon which to lay without exacerbating my pains. Pain keeps me awake at night. Pain wakes me up hours before sunrise. I am a sleepy old woman. There are millions and millions just like me in the world, men and women in the pains of aging, always have been. When will the medical profession develop some palliatives for aging? Here in the beginning of the 21st century, there is nothing doctors can do for a cracked iliac crest, except to bill one for exam and x-rays.