Oh No!

Where should I begin this tale?

I think I'll start with Thursday night.

Our Juneau friends, Cindy and JoLynn, traveling together without their hubbies, arrived at the Austin airport. Their destination was Cindy and Pepper's condo, at the coast in Port Aransas. But, lucky for us, they were going to spend a night at our house before driving there. They were due in around 5:30 p.m., and it would take an hour to drive to our house from the airport. They were renting a car.

As these things usually go, their flight was late, so it was after 10:00 p.m. when they finally got to Temple. And they were lost. I was already in my polka-dot flannel PJs when they called from the Big Lots parking lot, needing help to find our house. Dan and I both hopped in the car to go rescue the ladies. I drove, hoping that I wouldn't have to get out of the car wearing my jammies. When we got to the parking lot, Dan transferred into the ladies' car and piloted them home.

It was late and they had traveled from Seattle that day, so they were really tired. But we stayed up another hour or so visiting and catching up on a lot of Juneau news. It was so great to have them here.  Cindy and Pepper have visited us here before, but we hadn't seen JoLynn since our last visit to Juneau, in 2006.

On Friday morning we all drove over to Stoney Brook so Cindy and JoLynn could see Mom's new little "pad," and then we took Mom with us for a nice breakfast at Megg's, our favorite breakfast spot. We had a great time.

From left to right: JoLynn, Mom and Cindy

We said our good-byes there at Meggs, and Cindy and JoLynn headed south to Port Aransas.

You see that smiling face on my Mom? The next time I saw her, she wasn't smiling!

I had just taken my bath and climbed into bed, on Saturday night, when my phone rang. It was someone from Stoney Brook telling me the bad news that my Mom had taken a fall and had probably broken her arm. They had called an ambulance to take her to the ER at Scott & White Hospital.

This time I didn't go out in my PJs, but quickly put back on the clothes I had worn that day and dashed off to the ER. I got there before the ambulance did, but they soon arrived. Poor Mom! She was in GREAT pain, and her wrist looked like this. (Don't look if you get queasy about things like this!)

The x-rays showed that she had broken both the ulna and radius of her left arm, right at the wrist area. They were bad breaks. The orthopedic doctor mentioned surgery, but in the end decided just to reduce the fractures (move the bones back together) and splint her arm. The splint goes above her elbow. He said in a couple weeks she can get a cast, which will be shorter.

For a couple hours afterward, they kept her in the ER, trying to find the right pain medication that would both ease the pain (which was severe) and not make her sick. They weren't very successful. In the end, they decided not to send her home, but to admit her to the hospital. It was somewhere around 7:00 a.m. when she finally got placed in a room. 

Not to bore everyone with details, I'll just sum up what's happened since. They finally found a combination of pain meds that work pretty well and don't make her sick (Fentanyl and Tramadol). And by last evening she was doing much better. 

I spent several hours at the hospital with her during the day. Then after dinner I went back up, but didn't stay long. A cold front has moved into Central Texas, bringing ice with it. I didn't want to risk having the roads ice up before I got home, so kept my visit short. But she was in good spirits and was happy, because the doctor had told her she might get to go home Tuesday (today). We shall see.

The GOOD part of this story is that Mom is living close to us now. Had this happened when she was still in Carlsbad, I'd have had eight hours of winter roads to travel just to get to her bedside.