Got up at 5:15 this morning. Nothing unusual in that; I’ve always been an early riser. I was feeding the pets when my cell rang. My first thought was that it was my step-son on the West Coast. Yes, that would have made it 2:15 where he is, but he’ll sometimes call if he’s having a sleepless night or worries. I picked up the phone. The screen said “Apple Rehab.”
Shit.
Mom fell again. Somehow she got herself over the railing of her bed and down she went. Don’t know what she hit on the way down, but she has a laceration on her right temple that, until they finally got to closed with a steri-strip, bled like crazy. She had a bloody nose, but that resolved on its own. She has a swollen and black right eye and has cracked the orbit (the bony part around the eye). She has a broken bone in her right hand, which is also bruised purple, and a possible cracked rib high on her right side. (At any rate, she says it hurts to take a deep breath.) A CT scan of her head shows surface bleeding on her brain in three or four places.
She and I spent 9 hours in various ERs today – first at the walk-in ER they rushed her to, and then in the ER at Hartford Hospital, who has a cracker-jack neurological unit. More CT scans showed no progress in the bleeding. She’s staying overnight (with dire warnings by me that she will try to get out of bed; the last thing I want is a repeat of this) and they’ll do another CT scan tomorrow to see how she’s faring. If nothing seems worse, they’ll likely release her back to Apple Rehab a some point tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile, I’m requesting a patient-care conference.
I am so sorry, dear. My heart goes out to you.
Thank you, John. It’s hard, but at least I understand what’s happening. Poor Mom hasn’t a clue. I thank God that she was compliant yesterday, willing to go along with whatever was happening, not being argumentative and hostile. She was a good girl.