One more fall

I’ve been busy lately, too busy to write a report to wrap up my wife’s trip. I started one last week but didn’t have time to finish. And now fate has written a new chapter in my life.

On Labor Day, two days after my wife returned from her week-long trip (more on that later), we drove down to visit my mom. The highlight of the visit came when I brought out my cell phone and called my mom’s brother, who had turned 90 years old the day before. He and my mom (who is 87) talked for a while. She was very happy to talk with him again–it had been over a year since he last drove up from central Wisconsin.

All was well for a few days. And then …

Early last Friday morning, my wife woke me up at about 2:30 a.m. The phone had been ringing, and it was the nursing home. My mom had fallen and hurt herself. (It was five days short of the fourth anniversary of her first fall.)

She has had a number of falls in recent weeks and months, mainly because she is getting forgetful about locking the wheels of her wheelchair when she tries to get on and off. Usually, she is all right. Not this time.

There was no point in driving down there in the middle of the night–she would be in the emergency room for a while. We went back to bed, and I called the nurses station at the hospital when I got up about 7 a.m. She had suffered a broken elbow and a fracture of a cervical spinal process in her neck. They also discovered a urinary tract infection, but the elbow was the main thing. It’s her right arm, and she’s right-handed.

We drove down to see her late Friday morning. She was uncomfortable in the rigid collar they had put on her. She recognized me, but it was very hard to understand what she was trying to say–not unusual. I did hear her say that she didn’t know what happened.

We went home, and I went ahead with my plans for Friday night, which involved covering a football game out of town and spending the night with a friend. I drove back Saturday morning, did some work, and then we drove down to see her again. That day, Saturday, she was totally out of it. Maybe it was the pain meds. She didn’t seem to recognize me at all, and she kept calling out her brother’s name … and also “Mama.”

I knew what that’s about. Several times in recent months, she had forgotten that her mother died many years ago. She has been asking about her mom during many of our recent visits, and I have to explain to her again that she died long ago. In 1963. Almost 50 years ago. If her mom were still alive, she would be over 120 years old.

And now she was calling for her mother again. My wife speculated “Maybe her mother is very close to her now.” And I wondered, too. Later, I told her this isn’t the first time I have driven home, wondering whether I would ever see her alive again.

She was in deep sleep when we returned Sunday afternoon, but after an hour or so, she woke up–and this time she did recognize me. By now, they had put a soft collar on her. We were able to talk for a little while (as well as she could–she still is hard to understand).

I wasn’t able to visit on Monday (too busy at work and then a meeting at night), but I drove down again on Tuesday afternoon. This time, even the soft collar was down. She was sleeping when I arrived, but she woke up, I gave her some water, and we talked for a while. Then she started getting tired and said I can go now.

I’m hoping she will feel good enough to return to the nursing home in another couple days. They are still doing medical tests. Nurses told me she sat up for a while today and is eating a little more.

It’s rough, though, for me. I haven’t been sleeping well–getting tired easily since this happened. That Saturday visit, especially, was mentally and emotionally draining.

****

As for my wife, she returned to town recently, on a Saturday night. While she was happy to be back home, she was also glad she made the trip.

We had talked nearly every night (until she let her cell phone’s batteries get too weak). When I asked her if she was enjoying herself, she replied, “Oh, you bet!” The people on the tour were kept pretty busy each day, and she got achy at times. Aspirin took care of that.

She was happy to get home but enjoyed the experience. She showed me some of the brochures she got about the shows, some pictures she took, two pieces of jewelry she bought, and she told me about some of her experiences.

One highlight was that she won a “Bugsplat” game on the way home, earning about $15 in quarters. They make a grid on the bus windshield, and the first big bug that splats on the grid pays off (in death) for the bus passenger who selected that square. They also did lots of bingo to pass the time on the bus.

The tour company has gone to Branson, Mo., for several consecutive years. Word is that they will may go to Nashville instead next year. I’m sure she would like that. She said she had a good time with everyone, and she, her roommate and the two other women from our town usually did things together–meals, etc. Bottom line: The trip was worth it.

The cats, of course, were very interested in her return, and she and Maggie had a long bonding session almost immediately. She was moderately impressed that the kitchen was not in any worse shape than when she had left it, and that there was not a big stack of dishes remaining to be washed. (We have an automatic dishwasher, but my vast knowledge does not include how to operate that.) To make up for it, there was a big pile of unwashed clothes upstairs.

She returned on the Saturday night of Labor Day weekend. We took it very easy on Sunday, but on Labor Day itself we went off to visit my mom. She had her first quilting group meeting of the season that Tuesday. It seems that life is getting back to normal.