And the Road Continues

     My wonderful Runtyun has been helping Kyle out at the Cathedral during Music Camp for the past week. What a great way for her to start off her summer vacation! It has been a bit of a challenge getting her to and from Camp, mostly where to go after each day is complete. Her grandfather has been a tremendous amount of help. Thanks Dad.

     However, yesterday at 2:45 he called me and said he would not be able pick her up due to Mom's falling and not feeling so well. Well as you might expect, this bit of information started a whole bunch of balls rolling.

     As it turns out, Mom is OK. She was discharged from the ER around 10 last night. Being 92 we all were concerned for her health and safety, but it turns out we all overreacted.

     And now the complexity of our road to recovery and quality of life for Mother's remaining days is becoming more interesting.

olc

The road ahead

How does one put the thoughts and concerns screaming through the mind of a son whose mother is ending her run in this world? Whether it comes sooner or years down the road of life, we have seen the tunnel which we all must travel through.

During the travels which we go through in life there are many roads we follow, most of the time we know the direction to go. Other times the road ahead is under construction, or when we least expect it, it is in total destruction. Most of the time, we have control, we know where we are going and can control the outcome of the latest adventure and even the one ahead.

Sometimes though, life throws a blind curve at us, one which even though we should have seen coming at us, totally throws us out of  the lane we were traveling. We careen around trying to regain control, over steering and sometimes loosing control of our path. Sometimes we totally loose our way. This is when Family comes in to save the day, to help us regain control.

It is time now for our family to ride in like the Calvary, and help my Mother out of the trench she has fallen into. After all, she has done the same for her family countless times. We have all done our best to help and support her during her detour. We have done the natural thing and tried to minimise the trauma of her accident, to make it understandable. 

Now it is time to understand the severity of this course change.

olc

Our next step

"We" moved Mom to Stone Creek and she seems to be doing well.

But before I start with that part of the saga, I want to talk about her stay at St. Joseph's.

Last Monday, when she got hurt-fell down-we were confident that everything would work itself out and life would return to our version of normal the next day. Reality began to set in on Tuesday.

When I was finally able to get to the hospital, I found out that she had been moved to another room and floor. The staff on the 8th floor handled my confusion well, I guess they had experience in this sort of thing. I found the 9th floor nursing station and made my way to Mom's room, she was struggling to get out of her bed. This is of course, was a bad thing.

About the time I got there Nancy Harrison, a very good friend of Mom and Dad's came 'a visitin'. Nancy and I were able to calm her down while I explained that maybe she should relax and let her body heal.

I tried explaining that she had been hurt recently and needed to get repaired. However, my mother is a very stubborn person and persisted in trying to get out of her bed. I did not want to force her stay in bed, so I struggled to convince her that very smart people thought she should remain in bed. It is difficult to convince some one to remain some place which they do not want to be and to them is not really.

With Nancy's help, Mom began to relax and we were able to get her settled again.

After all the excitement of getting her settled, Nancy had to go. It was nice to see her, and she was invaluable with her help. 

Mom and I talked some, though it was hard to follow her thread. She was very interested in letting me know her opinion on the coming election. She is not too fond of Donald Trump. And to my surprise she was very critical of President Obama. The points she was making all tracked in a logical way.

I had been there for a long time and needed to get home to my kid and feed her. I felt very fortunate when I saw Dad coming into the room. He and I talked a minute. I let him know about Mom's need to get out of bed. I also said that she was having a hard time realizing where she was.

Both Dad and I were concerned about this. It turns out that our fears were unfounded.

The reality of the situation was beginning to make itself know to me. This is not going to be a couple of days and back to status quo. We may never get back to our normal. 

Though she is struggling to understand what has happened, every day I see improvement. Mom is significantly stronger than Tuesday and Wednesday, both physically and mentally. Our road to recovery will be a long one, maybe to the end, but my mother is doing well. She is an emotionally strong person and an example which I hope to follow. 

olc