Everything was Business as Usual...Until It Wasn't

Summer Solstice came and went.  It was a crappy, cold, windy day (not atypical of Seattle) and so my girlfriend and I barely left her condo.  We kind of looked over the railing at the goings on.  The parade wasn't as well attended as usual because of the weather. We watched a lot of TV and I was introduced to shows I'd never seen before (90 Day Fiance, Dr Pimple Popper, and sMothered...all gross in their own way)

I'm not one to just sit around, though, so I finally ventured out by myself just to shake off the boredom.  The event is in a very hippie dippie neighborhood, so it had the usual booths of handmade jewelry and ceramics, vegan and CBD products, tie dyed stuff, and "fair fare."  I bought some red licorice (for me) and some fudge (to take home the next day for my husband).  Pretty exciting.  Not.

The only thing worthy of a photo was this cute display of succulents in front of a plant store.

This is a Volkswagen...so are the succulents in the boot? Or in the engine compartment?

Diet for the day was junk food, so I ate potato chips.  Lots and lots of chips.  I went a bit crazy, I think mostly because I don’t normally get those things at home (we just don’t allow them in our house unless we are having a party, and then all leftover chips go home with someone).

As a result of all that salt, my right ankle and foot swelled up.  This is the ankle I sprained badly years ago, and it is still very sensitive to any aggravating factor.  Especially because normally I eat pretty cleanly and my system has no idea how to handle junk.  When I worked out for the next week, my shoe was so tight it hurt.  I had to keep loosening the laces.  Lesson learned…do not eat mass quantities of potato chips, or junk in general for that matter. 

Life continued on, 4^th of July came and went.  There weren't too many fireworks and both dogs handled the loud booms well.  I didn't drink a lot of alcohol nor eat a lot of crap.  We also had company for that week, which was fun.

In between all the fun stuff, life was normal...work, work out, visit mom, work, work out, take mom to appointments, work...

So I was busy and didn’t really get a chance to update my blog.  Business as usual. 

Then…last Friday, I got a call around 8:30 am.  The person calling had a heavy accent so she was difficult to understand.  She kept saying something about a scheduled surgery and a transfusion.  I asked, Are you sure you have the right number?  Finally she said Aren’t you Mary S’s POA?  Yes, I said.  Well, she is scheduled for surgery this afternoon to fix her broken leg. 

Holy crap, it was the hospital calling to ask my permission to give my mother a blood transfusion during surgery if necessary. 

Turns out, she had fallen in the night at her Assisted Living place.  She had broken her femur and was in the emergency room and had been there since 4 am.  Well, at least they did get her to the hospital, but neglected to call me to let me know.  Yikes.  Not the way you want to start your day.

So I headed on over to the hospital, there she was.  This was her x-ray.

 

Fortunately, amazingly, she didn't seem to be in a lot of pain, as long as she just lay still.  Unfortunately, with her Alzheimers, she just kept asking over and over, why are we here?  And during our stay there, she must have asked me a million times if I could help her get to the bathroom.  No, Mom, because you can’t be moved. 

Anyway, turned out we were in the ER until 6 pm that night when an operating room finally opened up and a surgeon was finally available to fix her leg.  The surgery went well. 

So the last week has been a flurry of activity, visiting her wherever she is (and she was moved 3 times in 3 days in the hospital), making medical decisions and arrangements (plus still trying to work as much as possible).  She’s now in a skilled nursing facility.  They've had to move her twice because she keeps trying to get out of bed, so now she's right across the hall from the nurse's station.  But I think she is finally realizing what happened.  This afternoon she told me, my leg hurts!  I asked, Do you know why?  She said, I broke my leg!   

To be honest, I don’t know her long term prognosis.  Her mind is extremely scattered, she’s not eating, and she’s not a very robust person anyway.  So I’m starting to wonder if she will ever be able to go back to her Assisted Living place. 

Anyway, I’m just kind of venting right now.  Getting old is not for sissies.