January 27, 2010
Dear Family and friends,
I hope the new year is treating you all well. I am sorry that it seems like the only time you hear from me is in these form letters. I will try and work on that, but until then I have some news for you all. I am going to apologize up front for this letter being so long. But here it goes.
Sunday, January 24th, mom and Kelly went over to the neighbors house to help build some shelters for the neighbors horses. This is what I understand to have happened.
There was a guy (David) who was carrying some t-stakes (that mom was letting the neighbor use) and while he was walking in front of mom, who was carrying a wrench, he slipped, tripped and fell next to a horse that was tied up. When he fell he spooked the horse and it started to turn it’s body to get away from David. While the horse was moving, mom noticed that the horses rump was turning toward her direction. Mom had turned her back to the horse to get out of the way, but the horse was faster than mom. The horses rump bumped mom’s backside and knocked her into the mud and muck. The mud that they were working in was a mixture of clay, straw, mud, and horse manure. Mom fell on her knees, then on her front side. To our best guess, mom fell with her left arm under her and the right arm (the one holding the wrench) out in front of her. She was covered from head to toe with muck. The neighbors jokingly asked her how it tasted, and of course mom replied that it tasted like shit!!! Once they cleaned her off, the neighbors had mom sit on a tire to make sure she was okay and for her to catch her breath. Mom didn’t remember, but the neighbor told me that mom was sort of out of it and looked spacey for just a moment, so she had someone walk mom and Kelly home.
When mom and Kelly returned home, mom called me to let me know that she had fallen. Mom called me about 2:30pm. I asked her how she felt and if she needed to go to the hospital. She didn’t think anything was broken and thought that she would wait it out. I told her that I’m going to call her back in two hours and see if she was still in pain. At that time she could wiggle her fingers, and there was no numbness that she felt, but her shoulder was hurting.
I called mom back in two hours and she thought that it was time to go to the hospital. She could still wiggle her fingers and there was still no numbness, but her shoulder was really hurting her. So Jim and I drove out to the house. It was about 5:30pm by the time we got mom to the emergency room. I checked her in, thank goodness I became her power of attorney, and had her sit down until the triage nurse called us up.
It wasn’t very long before they called mom up to take her information about what happened. It seemed to be taking forever for the nurse to take the information. Mom started feeling woozy, so she bent over in the chair to get some form of relief. Then while the nurse was taking her blood pressure mom became unresponsive. To me, it looked like mom was having a stroke. Her eyes got sort of glossy, her mouth hung open, her face was limp, and we couldn’t get her attention. I was tapping on her cheek and rubbing her hair calling mom and she wouldn’t respond. She wasn’t blinking or anything. The nurse was tapping on her chest and her arm and she couldn’t get any response either. This went on for a couple of minutes. The nurse took her blood sugar and never finished because we couldn’t snap mom out of it. Mom came too and didn’t remember any of it. So the nurse called for a gurney and they took mom right back into the ER. They immediately set her up and took an EKG and some blood work. Once mom was laying down she felt much better. We were never really told, but I am assuming that her EKG and blood work came out fine.
We were in the hospital for about four to four and a half hours. They took X-rays and determined that mom definitely had a broken shoulder and possibly a broken wrist. Here is where the fun begins. The left arm is the shoulder break. The way the doctor explained the break was that mom’s shoulder is like a ice cream cone and a scoop of ice cream. The break is right below the scoop of ice cream and above the cone. It is a straight across break which is a good break and will heal well. She also broke part of the “scoop” part of her shoulder but it’s not bad enough to worry about. When mom broke her shoulder it sort of jammed the cone part into the scoop part so it’s a very solid break. Then the right arm is the arm that the wrist is broken. It also is not a major break but it is a break. The break is right at the wrist where it bends.
After we are told all of this, they tell us that mom can go home, and that she has an appointment the next day to talk to a surgeon. I didn’t like the sound of the surgeon, but I liked the fact that mom could go home. A technician came in to wrap her up so she could go home. Well he acted like he didn’t know what he was doing. Not to mention that he didn’t speak very good English so he was hard to understand. He got mom put in a sling for her shoulder and wrapped her wrist up to the elbow. The discharge nurse came in and gave mom some milk of magnesia, Motrin, and a purkoset for her to go home on.
When we left the hospital, we were all starving, so we stopped at a Jack in the Box. We picked up some food and took it to mom’s house. Once we got there, I hate to say, but it was the funniest thing to watch mom try and eat these tiny burgers with two fingers and a broken wrist. She managed, but if we had video taped it, we may have made a ton of money on America’s funniest home videos. We got her set up in her recliner with some blankets and a fire and then Jim and I had to head home.
I arrived back at mom’s house around 7am the next morning. She slept ok but was freezing because the fire had gone out in the stove. I made a fire and mom and Kelly fell back asleep for a few hours before it was time to go back to the hospital.
Mom’s appointment was at 10:30am. When we got there we were a little late but luckily they still took her. When the doctor came in we got a little better news. Yes, mom’s shoulder was broken, and yes, her wrist was broken but she is not going to have to have surgery. Yeah!!! The doctor fixed mom’s sling (remember we thought that the technician didn’t know what he was doing, well he didn’t) so the sling took some of the pressure off of her shoulder. The only bad news was that for the broken wrist, mom was going to have to be in a cast up OVER her elbow. The reason the doctor decided to do this is to make sure that the wrist stayed separated so when it healed, she would still have good range of motion with it. As for her shoulder, they are not putting it in a cast but she has to keep in a sling and immobile for 6 weeks. We had to wait for someone to come and get mom to put the cast on. While we were waiting, mom felt woozy again. I told the doctor that this is what happened the night before in the ER. The doctor had mom lay down and had a nurse come in and take mom’s blood pressure laying down then sitting up. Then the nurse came in, mom’s blood pressure was 113/60, when she sat up her blood pressure went to 103/60. The doctor explained that her spacing out phases were due to being dehydrated. Once mom was given some water she felt fine and it hasn’t happened since. Then we headed over to get her cast and that went really fast and of curse, mom picked out the hot pink for her cast color.
I took mom and Kelly to Jimboy’s for some lunch to take home. Well when we got home we figured out that mom can’t feed herself at all! There is no way she can get her utensil to her mouth. I ended up cutting up moms lunch for her and feeding it to her. I now realized how much mom was not going to be able to do. Such simple things like talking on a phone, cleaning up after going to the bathroom, brushing her teeth, and scratching her nose are all but impossible. I stayed with mom and Kelly until about 3pm. I have not decided if I need to move in (which I think I’m going to have to) or not. Kelly is trying her hardest to do things for mom but there are just some things that she can’t do.
As for now, things are going good. If you call mom, Kelly will answer the phone but then ask for mom and Kelly will put the phone on speaker phone so mom can talk to you. Kelly is having a hard time explaining what has happened.
Mom is currently on Motrin and Vicodin for the pain and swelling. She is able to get up and move around, in fact I’m taking her shopping Thursday.
Mom has an appointment in two weeks to make sure her shoulder is healing like it should. In four weeks, the doctor will take the cast off of her arm and put on a shorter cast. The cast won’t go over her elbow so she will be able to use that arm somewhat again. Then hopefully after six weeks the sling will come off. Mom will have to do some physical therapy afterwards but the doctor thinks that that will be a breeze.
Then on March 9th, mom goes in to have cataract surgery on her left eye I believe. In April they will be working on her other eye so she will have decent eye sight again. Then hopefully mom will stay out of trouble and not break or bruise anything else.
So that is what’s going on as of now. I’m sorry this was a ton to read but I thought that it would be easier to read, then have me try to tell you all over the phone.
That’s all for now. I’ll try and keep you all up to date as I can.
Tristine
