CANE & ABLE
Fashion accessory gives writer a new outlook on her surroundings
It happened in an instant last November. I was stepping off the sidewalk, ready to cross a Montreal street
Instead, I found myself on the ground.
I managed to get up and continued on my way.
I was OK, nothing hurt, except my head was in a spin.
Why did I fall? Sure, my balance lately has been a bit wobbly.
But I had been careful and nothing like this has ever happened before. Action was required!
Off I went the next day to the clinic, where the doctor suggested physiotherapy to strengthen my leg muscles.
I duly made an appointment with a physiotherapist, who on my first visit showed me various exercises to strengthen my knees and improve my balance. He also advised me to get a cane for support.
Soon after, I visited my trusty home supplies store, where a friendly attendant helped me select a cane. She showed me a variety of canes and one in particular caught my eye. Yes. It would go with all my outfits! Once I selected it, she adjusted the cane so the top of the handle would reach the height of my wrist. She then affixed a set of spikes, bought separately, to the cane and showed me how to lower them in case of ice or snow or reattach them when not needed.
So here I was, ready to go with my new fashion accessory, a metallic blue beauty with a thick blue handle. New to the business of using a cane (or stick, as the British call it), I was back at my physiotherapist for instructions. “Climbing stairs, put foot first, then the cane. Descending, cane first, then foot.” Fearful on my first bus trip with my new cane, I applied his advice. It worked!
But canes are not total strangers to me. I have used my late father’s cane at home in the past when recovering from illness. In fact I had written an article for the Montreal Gazette about this cane in 1989, titled “Father’s inseparable walking companion now an idle memento.” Now I look at the two canes — Father’s a well-worn brown wooden cane and mine the spiffy new metallic blue one by its side.
In the article, written all those years ago, I described how Father had found multiple uses for his cane — as support, as traffic signal, raising it high in the air when crossing the street to ward off oncoming traffic, then as door knocker when arriving home.
The cane became a fashion accessory when Father got dressed in his best suit on his yearly visit to his beloved homeland, Hungary.
His cane even accompanied him on his final trip to the hospital and Mother and I brought it home after his passing.
So I still used his cane on occasion. But this new cane is different. It is now accompanying me on my outings, supporting me stepping up or down stairs and curbs, making me feel safer on icy or snowy grounds with its spikes.
It has also given me a new outlook on my surroundings. Now, I am on the lookout for people with canes. Whenever I see a person with a cane, it is an “aha” moment.
So you, too, need a cane! Right away, we have something in common. We belong to the “community of cane users!”
Sometimes, though, my new accessory seems like a burden, when trying to place it in a car, or trying to prop it up in a church pew or in a concert hall. Sometimes I even forget my new companion, as I did just the other day, leaving it at the doctor’s office. I guess we will just have to get used to each other!
Once again, my hairdresser Toni found the right words, as I left her store, “Don’t forget your new friend!”