It's All Great...Until It Isn't

Dinner was over; I was online just biding time until my usual Sunday evening call to Mom. Then I saw that she had FB messaged me, which was odd. It was cryptic and I just stared at it for a minute, "Call s uusie e. For. M e. I fell...you come." I thought maybe she was just joking around but then I sprang into action. I called her neighbor Susie who has a key, and jumped in my car.

As I walked in the door, her and her husband had just gotten her off the floor into her chair. She could hardly breathe and was white as a sheet. She had fallen in the kitchen bending over to pick up a towel. She wasn't wearing her life alert at the time so this 89 y/o badass Mom of mine drug herself to the living room and pulled her IPad off a table to message me.

Convincing her to actually push that damn life alert button took an hour. She has a great fear of going to a hospital and never coming home. But when I tried to get her to stand up and walk, she couldn't. EMT's convinced her to go to the hospital and they had to army carry her out and down the stairs to the gurney. Watching her cry in pain just about broke my heart.

She got pain meds in the ambulance and morphine in the hospital to do x-rays. A broken pelvis was the better outcome, not requiring surgery. After a little more morphine, they wanted her to stand up. They were trying to send her home! She looked like she was going to pass out just sitting on the edge of the bed, so I said she was NOT going to do it. Finally at 2 am they decided to admit her. It still could be a long wait so I decided to go home.

The hospital allows one visitor per day so my brother went the next day and we traded off. It seems like as soon as an older person goes into the hospital they're trying to push them out. I really wanted her to go home with 24 hour care but as the days progressed we could see it wouldn't work. Her insurance contracts with 3 facilities; one was full, one was closed due to a covid outbreak and the last one had a bed. It's hard communicating by phone or messaging about something so important but we got it done and Friday at noon she was transported to a rehab facility. Now she can't have visitors at all and it's going to be so hard. 

She's only been there 2 1/2 days and she is miserable. We all feel helpless, especially not being able to be there and talk her down. It was a rough week but we were still able to get away for our planned weekend while still keeping in touch with the family. Maybe next week my photos will grace my page.