Hip hop

This temporary and probably semi-ongoing blogging hiatus has been brought to you courtesy of my mom’s latest health ailment: a hip fracture and surgery to repair it. Not good on top of her already-poor health.

To say I am drained would be an understatement. I felt like I had everything on my plate just barely in balance, but this has thrown things into disarray. There is not enough time in the day right now. There wasn’t before.

It’s too much to go into the whole story, but the gist is that she had a fall on Sunday afternoon, and she was x-rayed in the ER and it was determined to be a fracture and the ball of the femur had to be replaced. Surgery was performed on Monday night, and that went well, though she had some trouble coming out of anesthesia and was put in the ICU overnight for observation given her previous pulmonary issues. Moved to a regular room on Monday morning and was having some hallucinations and confusion, most likely from her pain meds. (I got a great story about her seeing a nun pushing a baby stroller.)

After a very rough Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, things seemed to turn around on Wednesday night, and Thursday (today) was a very good day for her. She gave some initial resistance to going to a rehab facility after she’s discharged, but she really doesn’t have any choice. She has begun physical therapy at the hospital and had a great session this morning. She still requires a lot of assistance and gets out of breath easily, but her attitude has turned around and she’s much more willing to fight. They are hoping to discharge her to the rehab facility tomorrow, and she will begin her journey to regaining strength and walking ability there. We have no estimates on how long she’ll be there, but I suspect we’re looking more at months rather than days or weeks, especially given the fact that she’s got Charcot foot. But we’re really not looking that far ahead yet — first she needs to be discharged from the hospital and get over to rehab.

Balancing work, family, and my mom has been quite a challenge. I’ve driven to the hospital (about a 25-min drive each way) three times most days. I’ve had to return home or to daycare to feed The Little Sis. I’ve had to do my reading for work at 11 p.m. at night after everything else has been taken care of. (Though thankfully they told me to just take off today and Friday instead of juggling work with everything else.) I am physically and emotionally drained, but very glad she seems to be improving, and greatly hoping that continues.