Just When It Feels Settled

I got home from Kentucky on Saturday. On Sunday, my brother called me to tell me that Mom was in the hospital. She had fallen again; more to the point, she was pushed by one of the other residents, and now the staff thinks that maybe she hasn’t just been falling this whole time.

She was in pain, so they took some X-Rays. She has a slight crack in one vertebrae, small enough that they’re just going to let it calcify naturally, and they gave her something for the pain. The last I heard, she’s recovering, and doing much better.

The problem now is that she needs physical therapy, and her current facility isn’t set up for physical therapy, and the hospital can’t release her because they need to release her into someone else’s care, so until they find a facility that can handle her memory issues and do physical therapy, she’s just cooling her jets in the hospital.

I left Kentucky feeling oddly relieved in a way. I didn’t have to worry about my relationship with my mother any more; we’ve drifted past that. Instead, there was this person, this body that needed care. Instead of trying to communicate with her, I was going to support her by sending her notes along with care packages of tea, fuzzy blankets, etc. Then the next day her living situation was in flux again. But it does seem like I managed to slip in through a window of opportunity to see her and spend time with her.