Bang, Bang, She Hit the Ground

When the x-ray technician at Baylor Hospital ER recognized us today, it drove home the fact that bones get more brittle with age. She is becoming a regular customer, and I am her sidekick.

Twice Mom's fallen because of her dog, but, of course, it wasn't the dog's fault. The first time she broke her right wrist and had to learn to write left handed. I know she was diagnosed with osteoporosis, when that happened four years ago. She doesn't like taking the medicine the doctor's prescribed, and she doesn't drink milk at all. Do I remember being hard-headed as a child? Perhaps.

Last Christmas she overdid housework, and her third and forth lumbar vertebrae collapsed, crushing the nerves running down her right leg. She couldn't walk without help, and she was in severe pain. Mom lost three weeks of her life taking serious pain pills. I remember those three weeks--the situation literally drove me manic.

She finally got a steroid shot that quelled the situation. I thought she would have to go to a nursing home, because she lives alone, having outlived two fine husbands. The hospital social worker told me Mom wouldn't be able to care for herself anymore.

My mother doesn't remember she was suppose to have physical therapy then. When she could walk without a cane, the option for therapy went right out of her head, like a startled bird. She was doing fine, again, until she lost her balance trying to pet the dog and fell to the floor, hitting several pieces of furniture along the way. It wasn't the dog's fault.

I remember growing up, she'd say that I'd get a whipping if the dog bit me. This woman has more than the average amount of compassion and empathy for animals.

Mother's shrinking 5' 7", 125 pound, frame swayed backward as she hit the door and doorknob with her right side, and the corner of the television on the left side of her body. She bounced off the television twice, using it like some kind of bumper. The television began rolling across the floor, because she prefers to have furniture on casters. My age eighty-something mother, finally hit the ground on her tailbone, full force, amongst the electric and cable cords.

Luckily, a friend was at the house when this happened. Ana "iced her down," and I arrived about 30 minutes after she fell.

Since Mother knew I was coming by, she didn't immediately call me on the cell phone, as I would have expected.

I rang the doorbell, having completed my errands for the afternoon. After what seemed a long time, she opened the front door and I entered the living room. I could see that she had carefully hobbled to the front door with her cane firmly in hand, shadowed by her dog.

Mother looked so sheepish. "I fell," she said, smiling, then looking down at her silver, double hand drive, walking cane. It had been put in the closet a week before when she didn't want to look at it anymore.

This was the absolute reverse situation of the reproach I had received from her when I played Superman too hard as a kid. Superman was an acceptable game, in Mom's mind, as long as the towel wasn't brand new, and all the flying was done in grassy areas. SOME KIDS got to jump off the roof. Some kids broke bones too.

I made it into adulthood before I broke a bone. My big dog was playing "nudge" with me, while I sat at my computer, focused on ignoring him. He came at me at a full blast, building up a good speed from having started his run in the back yard.

That 85-pound puppy's game of nudge, broke three of my ribs. My doctor told me then, to start taking calcium pills. So now I do. Calcium is a very inexpensive dietary supplement. And it makes you strong like Popeye(sic). I should be in advertising!

Need to insert paragraph with some facts here. Will update this part.

When confronted with the opportunity of rebuffing your 80-year old mother from playing Superman, do you take it?

I hope she realizes that the words I'm saying to her are just about exactly the same things she said to me, growing up. She mentioned once, that she didn't like the way I pestered her about her pills, and doctors, and daily whereabouts.

I try SO, to be tactful--until I lose it. Plus I didn't have my own children to raise, although the years I spent as a sixth grade teacher were pretty damn good experience, if I do say so. But it's hardly the same.

My neighbor is about my age, and the past week she's had to put both of her parents in a nursing home. She had to decide they couldn't come back "home" from the hospital. They share a room as roommates at a place about 8 miles from here. I think that's such a cool thing.

Her parents can argue, like they have for 57 years, in the same room, with two beds. Dee is solid as stone, but it's unimaginable to me how she manages to raise five adopted kids under the age of seven, and care for two large sized handicapped parents all by herself. Her husband was called away to serve his country, six months ago.

She seems to deal with all the responsibility so well, but her approach is different than mine. I've heard her tell her mother not to get out of bed without her help, and she "WOULD" cooperate! I imagine she's just echoing what her mother told her growing up.

Parents, be nice to your kids. What you say will come back to haunt you!

This time the, "will you take me to the ER?" call came on a Sunday morning when I'd had about three hours sleep. Mother hadn't had any sleep the previous night. She had been tossing and turning on her possibly broken tail bone. In the area where one get a shot in the arm, hers was purple, blue, yellow, and swollen to almost the size of a softball. She asks me to help when she's in pain and can't sleep. At least, that seemed to be the criteria on this particular early Sunday morning.

Her fall had happened five days previously, and with no broken bones, but torn ligaments and pulled muscles in her lower back, her condition needed time for improvement. The doctor said such falls usually get better in ten days. Because of previous allergic reactions, the doctor wasn't able to prescribe much in the way of pain medicine. Half of his options for treating were cut because of her heart condition, and possible negative side effects of medication.

She could have had mitral valve replacement, but the doctor said her "window for best opportunity" had already passed. Nobody likes to be cut on, or to have to tolerate recovery experience. One day, she casually mentioned, that she expects congestive heart failure to be her final complication.

She's got to stay on her feet to keep her heart in shape. She can't stay on her feet too much, because she has a sprained back.

"Damn old age!" That's what she'd say if she cursed, but she doesn't (so I'll say it for her).

Before we left from the emergency room, the doctor gave her a pain shot. She started falling asleep before we got half way home. I, too, was ready for a nap.

The Baylor ER in Dallas is very well staffed, courteous, usually efficient. However, they were slammed in those early early hours of that particular new day. In the four hours we were there, they had seven trauma patients, including one that arrived via helipad.

The paramedics always seem so young, brave, and bold. One hardly ever sees an old paramedic. I guess they have a high burnout rate.

They always smile when they leave the hospital. It's a difficult job, and I'm glad there's someone besides me to do it. My stint in vet medicine was enough for awhile--scrubs, sterilization, and real live animal emergencies to be dealt with immediately.

There's one good item to report on the state of medical care for SARS on this last week of April, 2003: I only saw one patient with a mask on his face, and it was given to him immediately upon reporting his symptoms. God bless humans and their germs!

Mom and I napped when we returned from the hospital. I couldn't go to sleep, so I watched her sleep. I wondered how many times she'd done the same for me.

Roles reverse between parent and child at some point in time, in the American culture of today. With more advances in medical technology, I wonder what choices and options my generation will face in our senior citizen years.