Them Bones

To those of you who may have noticed that my posts have been rather cursory lame over the past few weeks, well, you’re right. I have a reason, though, and this time it doesn’t involve international espionage. (But, wait…I’ve said too much.) Anyhoo, my 77-year-old mother tripped in her living room and broke her leg. It was a fracture of her tibial plateau, for anyone who cares about these things, and earned her the full Black and Decker treatment—screws and a steel plate—and six weeks of non-weight-bearing status. That’s right, she can’t use her broken leg for anything more than filling out her slacks for six weeks. (This is not her x-ray, but it's the same area in question.)

Her house, built in that carefree era of the 70s when no one apparently anticipated getting old and breaking bones, has no main-floor bedroom or bathroom. (I can’t blame all this lack of foresight on the baby boomers, because my house, built 12 years ago, is really no better.) My mother’s two modes of doctor-approved locomotion are 1) wheelchair and 2) hopping on one foot using a walker, which can only be done successfully on stairs by Cirque du Soleil acrobats. So she had to go to rehab. The place is clean and generally pleasant and everyone is nice, but…yeah. William Shatner isn’t exactly deluged with PriceLine booking requests.   

For years, my mother’s been a firm believer in good nutrition (though she seems to have conveniently forgotten that my childhood was full of KFC and sugary breakfast cereals) and sort of obsessive about vitamins and supplements. She has never smoked, maintains a healthy weight, and doesn’t really have any chronic conditions of her age group, such as diabetes or a Wheel of Fortune addiction. But thanks to this little incident, she has learned that she has significant osteoporosis.  

It's is a game-changer, folks, and not in a good way like winning the lottery or having a forehead tattoo removed. So, at this skeleton-y time of year, my skinny friend above and I have a reminder: take care of your bones! Learn the risk factors for osteoporosis and what you can do to help prevent it, because I’m pretty sure Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton is one-of-a-kind. (But my mom would be a total bad-a** grammy with these things, right?)