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Although it is already February, Christmas is still branded on my mind — and on my behind. Just over a week before Christmas, I took a flying tumble, arms flailing, and landed on my side in the street.
My husband Michael and I had been to a party — I was the driver, on elderflower cordial — and we were walking back to our car.
We’d started out across a wide, busy road that was briefly free of traffic when I saw a car turn out of a garage opposite and into our path. I swung round to get back on to the pavement, and Michael and I accidentally crashed into each other.
I was knocked for six.
I got up a little shakily. One shoe had flown off and I grabbed it and my handbag and hopped back on to the pavement, gingerly checking myself. I felt winded and a bit sore, as though I’d have an interestingly-bruised bottom the next day — but other than that I was OK. I’d got away with it, I thought. Phew.
Ten days after her fall over Christmas, Sandra Howard (pictured) was unable to move due to the pain
Ten days later, I could hardly move for the searing pain. It was agonising.
I thank my lucky stars that, so far in life, I have not had to become used to pain, for I found it frightening now to be so incapacitated by it. Burning shafts and daggers all along my lower back and buttocks and radiating out down both legs.
There was a disorientating mix of numbness and pins and needles in one of my feet, too, as though it wasn’t quite sure whether it was dead or alive. Ibuprofen just didn’t touch it.
At first, I couldn’t imagine what on earth I’d done. It didn’t make sense, when the fall had been more than a week ago. But the reality was that I could barely walk, let alone bend down to put a turkey in the oven.
Typically, the pain had kicked in at the worst possible time. Our children and their families were arriving for Christmas, our son and his family all the way from the States. Even to hug them was agony.
I could do very little at this point except sink down on the nearest chair and smile through gritted teeth while the children got stuck into the household and Christmas chores.
Somehow, they managed to deal with their babies and energetic band of kids while doing the laundry and dishing up terrific meals for us all. I was in far too much pain to feel guilty.
Meanwhile, Michael began trying every avenue to get medical help. The doctors’ surgery was closed over the public holidays, and the person at 111 asked me a mass of questions which the next person they put me on to promptly repeated.
Sandra was seen by a consultant on Boxing Day. That set in motion an MRI scan and finally, almost two weeks after her fall, she was diagnosed with a fractured sacrum and packed off to a hospital bed.
I could go to the nearest hospital, the second person said finally — but we knew I’d be waiting there for hours, and then probably need an MRI scan that couldn’t be done for quite a while anyway.
As Michael rang, I felt so helpless, clinging to the nearest piece of furniture and struggling with pain that couldn’t really have got much worse. I couldn’t stand without feeling queasy.
It was our Left-leaning daughter, Larissa, who urged us to pay for a private scan.
‘You’ve got to go private and have an urgent consultation,’ she said. ‘It’s the only way.
‘And before you start resisting and remonstrating, remember there will be one less person queueing up in A&E if you pay to be seen. You’ve got some insurance cover — you should jolly well use it!’
This from a working mother of three who gives up any precious free time to help out at a food bank. I did remonstrate, but a bit half-heartedly, and in the face of her firmness we did as told.
I was seen by a consultant on Boxing Day. That set in motion an MRI scan and finally, almost two weeks after my fall, I was diagnosed with a fractured sacrum and packed off to a hospital bed.
I was one of the fortunate ones — thanks to our health insurance, it was a private bed — but I couldn’t help worrying about all those who might have taken a similar tumble over the holidays and would still be stuck waiting and in pain.
The sacrum wasn’t a body part I remembered from school biology, but it swiftly became a very familiar part of my anatomy. It’s the shield-shaped bone at the end of your spine, nestling between the hips and attached to the pelvis.
Fractures and broken bones as a result of a fall are most common in those aged over 60, usually those who have some degree of osteoporosis or bone loss. At the age of 82, I was a prime candidate.
Nothing could be done except to let it heal on its own and, meanwhile, to get on top of the pain.
The fact it was my first ever broken bone was of little consolation. I’ve never had a bone density scan and have always felt like a tough old bird.
I might have been waif-like in my modelling days, but I have always been robustly healthy through the decades. Even my little bout of Covid nearly a year ago was minimal, and a lingering cough last summer turned out to be nothing more sinister than a mild chest infection.
I have always rushed about, packed everything in and felt younger than my years (though it helps not to peer too closely in the mirror).
Only a few months ago, I was having a launch party for the my latest book, Love At War, darting about welcoming all our friends.
And yet, as I left hospital last month and the friendly nurse held out a hefty bag of painkillers, each item carefully checked and signed for, I felt old and vulnerable. Weeks on, I am still rattling with pills.
It turns out I am not invincible after all, and it is a sobering lesson. Suddenly, I feel my years.
I refuse to admit I’m frail — not yet — but I can see, almost touch, the time when I might be. Spending a few days in hospital at this age, felled by pain, is like seeing a deeply unwelcome future up close.
Will there come a time when I have to be ‘looked after’? My fractured sacrum has been a hint of what it might feel like for me or Michael, 81, to become a burden to our children — and it’s given me a real fright.
This month, I’ve started walking about again; slowly, warily. Seeing my hunched reflection in a shop window was a terrible shock. I looked like a really old, old lady — not the woman who, just a few months ago, walked tall and felt fine.
My fractured sacrum has been a hint of what it might feel like for me or Michael, 81, to become a burden to our children — and it’s given me a real fright (Pictured: Sandra and Michael Howard together)
Have I got to get used to the fact of my world shrinking? Do I have to resign myself to living a less ambitious life? Not yet: not if — and it’s a very big if — I have anything to do with it! I will mend from this eye-opening tumble, take more care and be more aware.
The thought of being unable to get to the shops, to cook, or to have showers instead of climbing into a bath, is very unwelcome. But I’m not there just yet.
A scare like this does force you to re-evaluate, however — to be aware of looming pitfalls and to count your existing blessings.
Michael and I still have our sight and hearing (well, sort of: a lot of teasing goes on between us about our misheard words). We still, thankfully, have all our marbles, give or take the odd embarrassing memory lapse, especially for names.
And yet those painkillers shrouded my brain in a kind of fog that shredded my concentration and left me feeling exhausted. My mind is sharper now but that, too, felt like a nasty warning.
We still feel incredibly lucky with our three wonderful children, all married and leading full and productive lives, and our seven lively grandchildren — ranging from mid-20s to seven months old — to dote on and adore.
I can get over one fall, although as you get older there are health concerns that start to mount up among acquaintances. Two of my oldest friends from our modelling days have both been through the mill recently.
Paulene Stone, a former Vogue cover model, tripped and broke both her knees a couple of months ago. She was far more incapacitated than I was, and it’s only her extraordinary resilience that pulled her through.
Michael and I still have our sight and hearing (well, sort of: a lot of teasing goes on between us about our misheard words). We still, thankfully, have all our marbles, give or take the odd embarrassing memory lapse, especially for names
My other oldest friend Dotti, or Dorothy Bond as she was in her modelling heyday, has just been in hospital with horrible diverticulitis, a digestive condition, and she also needs a new hip.
None of us can believe that age is catching up with us like this. Each setback feels like such a nuisance, keeping us from the full, busy lives we have built for ourselves.
All of us lean on each other and find ways through, and we are lucky in that regard, too. Dotti called me for a mutual moan and relayed how she’d returned a call from Paulene that went unanswered.
We later discovered — and this had me in very painful fits of laughter — that, unbeknown to her, Dotti had rung while Paulene was in church, in the middle of saying a prayer for the two of us.
Dotti and I were both touched. Never, to our knowledge, had we been prayed for before — while Paulene saw the ringing phone as a good sign.
(The vicar, however, took a different view, and asked the congregation to make sure they had their phones switched off before entering the church!)
I am so grateful for friends and family who rallied round me. When Sholto, my eldest, was home from Dubai for a precious few days, he still found time to visit me in hospital, bringing a delicious bag of goodies. And, of course, the doctors and nurses were wonderfully attentive and professional. Between them all, I don’t feel so struck down.
But I do feel chastened. I’m a naturally active person and to be suddenly so dependent on others, slowed up and denied the chance to be productive, has been both humbling and hard to take.
It’s long past Christmas, but all this has made me appreciate even more one of my special presents — an Apple watch which senses if you’ve fallen, buzzes on your wrist and dials your nearest next of kin or 999 if you don’t respond.
Even better, my hospital ward had a notice on the wall by my bed, ‘Call don’t Fall’.
I can’t recommend that advice highly enough.
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