How was YOUR Monday?!
I spent MY Monday at the ER with Florence all day long. I get this call at 9 a.m., "Um, hi, Rebecca, yeah this is Judy...(the nurse at the facility)...we found Florence lying unconscious out in the courtyard right after breakfast. It appears that she fell again, this time face first..."
I was up, dressed, and out the door within less than 30 minutes, with Pete at my side. Luckily the hospital is only 2 minutes away.
As you can see, she's got a gash on her nose, there was not enough skin to put stitches in, so it'll be scabbing over and her eyes will probably turn black and blue around them from it. She had a neck brace on at first, to make sure she didn't have a skull fracture or neck/spine injury. They did a CT scan and nothing was broken or fractured or damaged, thank God.
And of course, Flo-Flo is all smiles. She really has no clue how dangerous this fall really was. She could have broken her neck, or her hip. She could have hit her head on a rock, or poked an eye out. The problem is, she fell a couple weeks ago and broke 4 of her toes on one foot. So the doctor puts this rubber-soled flat shoe on her foot, to protect them, and she insists on walking everywhere, so the damned shoe TRIPS her up! She won't sit her stupid old stubborn butt DOWN in a wheelchair.
She's got cuts and scrapes all down both arms and all of her fingers. She tried to catch herself when she fell, but apparently got knocked out and doesn't even remember falling.
This woman is gonna drive me to drink. I love her dearly, but WOW, 90 years old, stubborn as a mule, and with Alzheimers, she's gotta get up and go go go, (to WHERE, nobody knows), because that is what she's done most of her life as an O.R. Nurse. Had to be everywhere STAT!! So she doesn't like to sit in a wheelchair and wait around for somebody to come push her. She just gets up and hobbles along, holding on to the railing against the wall.
But if her toes aren't allowed to heal, that shoe won't come off, and she'll keep tripping over it.
Sooooooo, this makes it the fifth fall in 4 months at this facility. I am ready to get her the hell outta there and back to my house, where I can take better care of her. Apparently nobody SAW her get up from the breakfast table and bolt out the door. I don't understand how that's possible. If you have a room full of old people, and one chair is suddenly EMPTY, you'd THINK somebody would be concerned. But who knows how long she lay there, on her side, unconscious, until they found her.
We sat with her the entire time she was in ER, which was about 6 hours. I am exhausted. I'm physically exhausted, and mentally exhausted too. I hate seeing someone we know and love keep falling down like this, but she IS 90 years old, it's GONNA happen, and there's not much anybody can really do about it. I know this, logically. But part of me wants to make some HEADS ROLL at this facility, ya know? I realize it's like a little kid, you cannot watch them constantly, every moment of every day. But still, it really annoys me that this keeps happening, and so often.
Well anyway, that is where I've been all day long. So we sit, and we wait, and we wait, and we wait, and finally Pete says, "Screw this, I'm going to McDonalds for some food." (We hadn't eaten anything since a quick mouthful of toast before running out the door). So while he's gone, Flo-Flo needed a bed pan again (for the 5th time), and then the doctor FINALLY shows up to clean her wounds and put some bandages on, and she says, as Pete returns, "The wheelchair ambulance ride is on his way to take her back to the facility now, so we need to get her wounds cleaned and get her dressed ASAP."
So here we are, the 3 of us, standing around eating McDonalds while the doctor tries to do all this, and I'm handing Florence a chicken nugget here and there, a few fries here and there, have a sip of iced tea, etc., and the man with the ambulance wheelchair is standing in the doorway----everything happening all at once----and they kick us out in a matter of MINUTES. After HOURS of sitting there doing NOTHING. Grrrrrrrrrr. I really hate hospitals.
She's back in her facility, to have a nice warm bath, put her jammies on, and sleep like a rock the rest of the night. I'll be going there every day to spend time with her and make her sit that ass of hers DOWN in that friggin' wheelchair, if I gotta TIE HER DOWN IN IT myself.
What a crazy Monday. I need to go lay down. Pete gets into the car, on our way home, and says, "Well we can go catch a matinee movie now..." And I'm like, "WTF?!" He wanted to spend time with his daughter and son-in-law who are visiting until Wednesday, and this was the only day he'll have time to do that, so I told him to take them and go without me. Jeez. The man is like the Energizer Bunny. I'll never be THAT energetic....not even if YOU showed up at my doorstep and wanted to go hangliding. I'd say, "Wow Stevie baby, that's cool, yeah, you go ahead and do that, and have some fun---then come on back here when you're done...I'm too tired."
Ehhhh who am I tryin' to kid?! I'd go with ya, and take pictures of you doing that hang gliding thing FROM THE GROUND, thankyouverymuch. THEN I would take a damned nap.
I have a roast in the oven, so I'm going to lay my body down for a bit, and try to relax awhile.
Bye for now.
Love you lots...xoxox
---Rebecca
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