Columnist Doug Blough shows off his injuries after falling — while stone cold sober — outside of his home in Cody.

Photo courtesy Doug Blough

Doug Blough

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I’ve been falling a lot lately — dead sober I might add — and have a neurologist appointment in November. Back when I used to really drink, in my early 20s, I put my alcohol tolerance to the test. I was working roofing for brother Jess who would hire summer help from his church. One regular named Dale Holler went to a religious college in Pensacola and would come home to his dear Christian mother Faith. Dale was a semi-tall, skinny redhead whose charming lack of worldliness was perfect fodder for my sometimes inappropriate zings..

Dale was like Ed Norton — skinny, yet could eat endlessly. There used to be a restaurant out on Cody’s west strip that had a steak so large they offered it free to anyone who could eat the entire thing in one setting. Dale more than once consumed that monster steak, and I think they finally blackballed him from the challenge. One day I was teasing him about all the Pepsi he drank and boasted “I guarantee I can drink a case of beer in one night and you’ll never drink a case of Pepsi.”

He accepted the challenge to be conducted in my little party apartment after work and the loser would have to pay for the winner’s beverage, plus $50. The word spread and even my church leader brother Jess and his wife Marti stopped over to watch some of the action.

It went far into the night and I finally lost lucidity on my 22nd beer, but I was still kind of walking. Dale finished all 24 Pepsis and I paid up. Fast forward 50 years to last week when I fell flat on my face while walking my dog — the last of three falls that day. After being rushed to Cody hospital, I got my first helicopter ride to Billings for further testing. I barely remember anything of those two days, but left with stitches in my nose and forehead and heart monitors all over my chest. We’re awaiting a neurologist to hopefully pinpoint what has made me fall over a dozen times in two months If this was decades ago, booze would be a prime suspect, but I haven’t been drunk in years.

On the day of my monster fall, I first went down hard while walking my dog around the block like I do every early afternoon, but only made it 100 yards to the first stop sign when I fell flat and couldn’t get up. A valiant UPS driver pulled over and helped me to my feet. I decided to abort and returned to our townhouse where I fell again on my porch, this time more gently..

So I’m on the couch about an hour when I felt so bad Naomi never got to finish her poop walk, I decided if I walked carefully, we’d make it. Half way around the block, my feet and upper body again felt out of sync with my head leading the uncoordinated parade. I remember my back really hurt for some reason, but we made it to the next stop sign. Halfway down 31st Street though, I could no longer control my feet — now almost on a dead run and fell brutally hard, face-first in the middle of the street.

A gracious, semi-older couple, Tammy and Dave Ellis, ran from their nearby house and with much effort, lifted me to my feet and got me to a chair where Tammy nursed my face with cold rags (she even asked if she could pray for me) wiping away the gushing blood until my sister-in-law Jane arrived and drove me to the hospital.

Along with these many falls, my memory had been failing me badly and even for the last several years, my normally-sharp mind hasn’t been working right. We’ve tried every medication and treatment, but nothing changes and I tend to isolate myself except for the rare Monday golfing with Motor-mouth, Dave “Beem the Dream” Beemer. In fact, the Monday before my fall, we golfed and my ball was seldom near a fairway. My score was rising as my body was falling.

I always put two beers in my golf bag and we usually buy a six-pack at the nine-hole turn. This particular day Dream not only noticed how slow I was drinking — one Pabst the entire front nine and the second on the back — but also commented I had been staggering and slurring from early on. The neurologist might soon explain why, but that day I couldn’t have passed a field sobriety test fresh out of bed, and I rarely drink before I wake up. Something was amiss that day, my friends.