Mom's Leg

Yesterday afternoon I took Mom to her appointment with the doctor about her painful left leg. She's having a lot of trouble getting around on the leg and it seems worse in the last few days since I saw her last. Mom has been taking some pills for her pain but it doesn't seem to be helping much and she's having trouble with the side effects.

The doctor examined her and ordered x-rays to make sure it's not broken. The area that hurts is near Mom's left hip which was replaced about 10 years ago. We went to the hospital (near the clinic) and got her x-rays. The on-call doctor was supposed to call me last night if they found she had a fracture. Since they didn't call that should mean it is not broken.

The doctor said that if it wasn't broken she would agree with the physical therapist that it's a pulled muscle and physical therapy is the best thing for that. I will call the doctor's office next week to verify the x-ray results were negative. I think Mom was disappointed that the doctor didn't do something to relieve her pain - like give her new pills or maybe some kind of a shot like she got for her back. She sees the physical therapist on Monday.

In the meantime I'm a little worried about her alone in her house. She can move around but just barely. I suggested she try to stay off the leg as much as possible. It could be that the muscle just needs time to heal. She has always been active and it's hard to get her to keep still. We've made an agreement that I will call her at a couple predefined times of the day to check on her. Now that she knows when I will call she won't be napping. :)

One of the side effects of the pain medicine is that they make her sick to her stomach and she doesn't feel like eating. That's bad because Mom has been losing weight recently and she didn't really need to lose weight. I was dismayed when she got on the scales and she had lost another 5 pounds in the last 10 days since her last doctor visit. She's not at an unhealthy low weight but if this trend continues it could go get there quickly. The doctor recommended nutritional supplements. I picked her up some Ensure so she's going to try that. In the meantime she's going to switch to a previous pain medication, one that is less effective but also has 0 side effects for her.

The family is all hoping that Mom's leg problem turns around for her soon. She just wants to be able to walk without a lot of pain.