When they came to get Mom for breakfast last Tuesday at St. Andrew's they found her in bed complaining of pain in her leg. She was transported to Conway Regional Medical Center. Bad news. Turns out that she had broken her left hip. Surgery was scheduled for yesterday afternoon but had to be cancelled at the last minute when they discovered that she was suffering from a urinary tract infection.
They are aggressively treating the infection with intravenous antibiotics to keep it from spreading to the fracture. They hope to have it sufficiently beaten down to do the surgery on Friday but we will have to see.
Obviously, this is not a good situation. Mother has inherited her mother's locomotive-like constitution. Her blood work is good and her lungs are clear. They are not going to intubate her. They can knock one of these hip jobs out in a couple of hours. They are confident that she will survive the procedure. But that's not the issue.
As one of the doctors told my brother Bob, "Either this will work or it won't."
The prospects for the long term are typically not good for elderly people that break their hips. But then again Mother is 84 or 85. Her long term prospects aren't all that good anyway.
There is a part of me that would be OK if she would just go ahead and leave this vale of tears before enduring any additional trauma. But none of us know the day nor the hour when we will go away. That is no less true with Mother.
She is stable. She is free of pain. There are people with her and we have hired a service to sit with her from 11pm to 7am. I have genuinely been impressed with the level of care Mother is getting from the staff there. And having a nurse for a brother who is buddies with all the docs up there does not hurt the situation one little bit.
We are doing the best we can. Either this will work or it won't.
My thanks to everyone who has called or written. I truly appreciate it.
And I will be back when I am back. I've talking to PM a couple of times a day. I will ask him to post here to let folks know what's going on.
Thank you once again for all of the kindnesses extended to me and the family.
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2 comments:
Sorry to hear about your mother.I worked on the ortho floor at CRMC for 5 years before going to Baptist. They are a good bunch. Mike Foster is the weekend charge nurse for the day shift. Mary Singley is the night shift nurse. Tell them that you know me. That might get you a cup of coffee..lol Keep us posted when you can and just know that your mother is in our prayers.
Kitty
Sorry about your Mom.
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