So Granny (my mom) fell. We’re having bad winds here (not the burrito kind) and when she opened her car door while it was on a slope, a gust came up and knocked the door, and Granny, backwards onto her replaced hip. Waaaaay backwards, because of the slope.
A wonderful neighbor came over and helped her sit in the back of her car (okay, lifted her, pretty much) then came and got me.
She hates it when I freak out.
On the other hand, when the woman (who says childbirth isn’t painful and has dental work without anesthesia) says it hurts so much she’s weeping and needs an ambulance, I tend to loose my sh😳t. Sorry.
We are super incredibly fortunate to live in a city where emergency response times are counted by seconds. Fire & rescue was rounding the corner in record time and the ambulance not far behind. We had a swarm of kindly gentlemen watching over her and had her, and me, in the ambulance with a minimum of fuss and pain.
Off we went. Rallied the troops en route, thank GOD for supportive family and friends.
No room at the inn, no, wait, at the ER… we have one lonely hospital here and capacity is ALWAYS on overload. They now number the spaces for parked gurneys in the hall like they do rooms.
HIPAA? We don’t need no stinkin’ HIPAA!
One CAT scan later and they identified three pelvic breaks and another to the top of her femur, all on the side where she had her hip replaced. Oh, nooooo… ten days before Christmas…
For those not in the know, we’re currently remodeling the house (a tri-level) so she has a suite on the bottom floor (bed, bath, sitting room). In the interim, we’ve got everything from my former office piled in our sitting room, waiting to go up to her bedroom when she heads downstairs. It’s musical chairs on steroids.
However, given all this, I’m weirdly calm about the fact Blondie and fiancée are arriving to stay in less than a week. My current opinion: if you wanna sit somewhere and there’s crap in the chair, move it yourself.
So off she went to the ward. Hallelujah, she got a room in the new tower, which are only private rooms (!! There is a god…)
Unnngh, my dad always had “semi-private” when he was hospitalized, it was awful. “Semi-private” is like being a just little pregnant. There’s no halfway. Nothing like listening to Fox and Friends or Twilight the Movie at high volume at 2am.
The nurse apologized that the sleeper armchair wasn’t comfortable (it’s very like a business class seat – whippy flippy and it’s a full length single bed) but as far as I’m concerned, if it’s not a steel folding chair, it’s an upgrade.
I honestly don’t know how people survive without families in hospital. You really need someone there the majority of the time running interference and doing the little things that make you more comfortable. The nurses do their best, but they have way too many patients to be able to provide the care needed to really make it bearable.
So mornings she likes a good wash, hair brush, teeth cleaned, etc (gods, do the lonely patients just go with unbrushed teeth?). However, this morning, gads… she was in the midst of a full wash and changing her gown.
We all know hospital gowns are not the most forgiving but actually the gowns here are sized for linebackers. She swims in them, but like all hospital gowns, they have the innate ability to slide where they are of the least use.
NOK NOK NOK “Housekeep-eeeeeeng!”
Oh, Lordy, not now please.
“I’m just here to…” Please. Could you come back?
“Ohhhh… oooookay.”
Thirty seconds passes.
NOK NOK NOK, the door flies open and the curtain pushed aside.
Please! Not now!!
“I have something for Miss Maaaaaaary!”
Oh, god, WOT??
“Catering!”
(I muttered an ecclesiastical response and went to the door. Accepted a tray from the eager young man. Thank you.)
He went away, leaving, oddly, a single cup of oatmeal. Which she hadn’t ordered… she’d already had eggs, applesauce and an English muffin on her breakfast tray.
NOK NOK NOK
OMYGOD WHAT??
“I just need to…”
Can it wait, please?
“No, no bother, I just need to…”
Seriously, could you come back?
“It won’t trouble you!” (Mummy’s lying there soapy and vulnerable, gods, go AWAY!!)
The young woman slipped past me and cheerily said “I just need to check the supply of gloves!”
Seriously, what???
Poke, poke, poke, she goes, at the packs of gloves in a dispenser on the wall. “Yup, all full! Thank yoooo… have a good daaaaaaaaay!”
All we need now is the orthopedic surgeon to show up. She was admitted Friday night, and we were told he’d visit that night or the following morning.
Which came and went… as did Saturday evening…
The nurse called him three times. Alas, our intrepid physician was no where to be found, and he was the one who said whether she would have surgery and, more importantly, whether she could get outta bed. Without his blessing, she was metaphorically chained to the bed.
And, we found out later, if her weight was removed from the bed, all hell breaks loose. Alarms, lights, rescue squad rappelling in from the ceiling…
Okay, that’s not strictly true, but that bed makes a HELL of a noise.
Anyway, we were still waiting Sunday morning. If you’ve ever had a loved one in hospital, things hinge on the arrival of the doctor. He’ll see you for five minutes, bill you a king’s ransom, and disappear in a wisp of smoke.
If you’re not present and accounted for, you don’t hear what’s happening… and let’s face it, it’s far better to have two sets of ears, especially one who’s not in pain and wanting certain answers. I love my mom, but I want to hear from the doctor myself, y’know?
She thinks I’m a control freak. I think she’s right.
Anyway… we got through the pseudo-bath and moved to brushing teeth.
NOK NOK NOK.
“Mrs. Bennett?”
Yep. The mythical man himself. Nothing like having a mouth full of toothpaste when the good doctor arrives.
She was, he said, approved for weight bearing to the extent she could handle it. HOORAY! She cheered.
After trying it, though, she quietly said “I don’t think I’m going home tomorrow.”
Yeah. Y’broke your hip in three places as well as your femur. This is gonna take time.
Examining Misadventures 