I'm doing 41 things
I’ve had time for the last few days. Mom fell Tuesday afternoon and broke her hip. She had surgery Wednesday night. I’ve been hanging out with her in the hospital. We expect her to be moved to a nursing home for rehab tomorrow.
Unfortunately the break was pretty complicated thanks to Mom’s extremely osteoporotic (crumbly) bones. Not only did she break the ball of her hip joint off, she also broke the top of her femur off. The surgeon had to do quite a bit of extra work to repair the damage. The new pieces he put in must heal and fuse with her own tissue, a process that takes time.
He said with most hip replacements the patient is standing and starting to walk with a walker within a day of the surgery. Because of Mom’s extra repair work she will not be able to even stand on that leg for 6 weeks. So learning to walk again won’t start until after that. I don’t know what that means for where she will live in the meantime or where she will go after. There are lots of options to investigate and decisions to be made.
On the good side, Mom is otherwise quite healthy and strong. She has been in great spirits the last couple days even though today I had to give her the bad news about her delayed recovery time. I think she will get tired of waiting very quickly, but for now she is in denial. She can’t wait to return home and “get back to normal.”
She has had lots of great visits by friends and family and her pastor who prayed for her. Right now she’s getting lots of attention and eating it up. The hard part is ahead of us. She’s doing great with her therapy so far. She has incredible upper body strength for a woman her age. I am just happy she is starting out much healthier and stronger and with a better attitude than her situation two years ago when she fell and broke ribs.
Go Mom!
