Broken Hip

Credit: Crystal's Blinkies

Anyone with elderly relatives knows those are two of the most dreaded words you will ever hear. But I was greeted with those two words in my inbox on Wednesday around Noon. Just four days after moving from the round-the-clock care unit to assisted living, my grandmother fell and broke her hip. They thought at first that her shoulder might also be broken, but after repeated examinations and testing, that proved not to be the case (thank goodness). She is 83 years old and in declining health, with a moderate to serious case of Parkinson's disease and some osteoporosis, so healing will be quite a challenge, but today's surgery to pin the bone went well, so there is hope. Any good thoughts you can spare for her would be much appreciated.

These events also put quite a crimp in our weekend plans. We were supposed to leave Thursday night for my parents' house, but they've spent the last several days handling my grandmother and all of the medical stuff (my mom is an RN, so she is a great help at understanding "doctor speak"), and they will spend most of tomorrow moving her *back* to the round-the-clock care unit. At least everything is already sorted and organized, since they just moved her last weekend. All of this is taking place two hours away from where my parents live, so there was no point in us going to visit if they weren't even going to be there! (They're staying in a hotel to keep from driving back and forth every day.) Plus, we would have just been in the way. With Luke in tow, we wouldn't have been much help at packing or moving, and I doubt Luke would have been allowed at the hospital for visitation, so she wouldn't have even gotten to see him. No point in disrupting his routine for essentially no reason, so we're staying put. We'll enjoy the long weekend, and DH will save those two vacation days he planned to take so that we can maybe go down some other weekend later in June and visit, after she is out of the hospital.

Currently feeling: sad, but cautiously hopeful