The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Down and out for the 10-count



I watched a baseball game until about 10 p.m. that night. I got ready for bed and went to my fridge to drink a glass of prune juice I use for a stool softener a couple of times a week.

I was standing at my sink and drank the prune juice too fast and choked. I fell to the floor on my back. I knew I was hurt bad.

I was light-headed and dizzy. I lay there until the next morning. Early the next morning I somehow got to the phone and called my daughter, Karen, who lives about seven miles from me and told her I was hurt and need to go to the hospital.

She called me back and said a fire truck was on its way to pick me up.

When the fire truck got to my house, Karen was with them. Two of the firemen knew me from my senior softball playing days. They loaded me onto the truck and took me to the hospital.

A chest x-ray was done on me. I had seven broken ribs and a lung that was damaged. I was in the hospital for three days. The lung healed my first night there, and I was sent home after the three days passed.

Seven of my kids came to my home to be with me from all over the United States. I had a houseful of people for two weeks. I was up walking some the first day home.

I’m alone now, and every day I take medicine to ease my discomfort. My kids don’t like it, but I’m walking in my home and a little outside every day.

I have a doctor, a nurse, and someone to visit me to make sure I’m okay, and I exercise three times a week.

I will be okay. I’m a tough old bird.

(Contributing writer Everett Vanover lives in Fairfield, Calif.)

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