Mom Took a Tumble

My Mom had been doing pretty well until last Wednesday. Her energy was increasing and she was feeling a bit more energetic with each passing week. The only remaining issue I was worried about was her underweight problem. She doesn't eat enough and is having a hard time gaining weight back after losing so much to pain medication that made her nauseous. At her last appointment she weighed in at 88 pounds. Since her back surgery she has not needed the awful pain medication and I had hopes she would start regaining some weight. But progress on this front is very slow. In other respects she has been pretty healthy. As I said, until Wednesday...

Mom uses a walker to navigate around her home and she does quite well with it. When we take her out to the store or doctor appointments she has been using a cane with some extra support of either my hand on the other side or leaning on the edges of countertops or grocery store carts. She can go a short distance on her own with her cane but not too far. For that reason she is not supposed to leave her house to go down the driveway and get her own mail at the street. She waits for Tyler next door to bring her mail.

Of course sometimes she gets impatient, and she has been feeling more energetic. A couple weeks ago she told me she was going to try and get her own mail. I asked her not to do that because it's too far for her to be walking on her own with just the cane. She told me "I think I can make it!" That was not confidence inspiring to me and I reiterated that I wanted her to wait for the neighbors to bring the mail.

Last Tuesday Mom was done being patient and she went out to get her own mail. She knew I would not approve so she did not tell me she did that. On Tuesday she was successful getting out to the mailbox and back and into the house on her own. On Wednesday she was not successful. After she got her mail on Wednesday she returned to the house only to fall on the top of the two small steps before reaching her front door.

When I called her late Wednesday afternoon (as I do every afternoon) I asked how her day was. She told me everything was just fine. I happened to ask if she got her mail okay (meaning did the neighbors get it to you). She said "Yes, I got it." Then she paused. And she said "I went out and got it myself." What?!! I became alarmed. I asked "Mom, was that a good idea??" She said "Well no, because I fell." WHAT?!!

She told me that she fell hard on her left side and she was afraid that she had broken her hip. Mom has no fat padding her bones and I think her left hip hit the corner of the cement step pretty hard. She told me she was sure now that she had not broken the hip because she could walk around on it okay. She also skinned up her knee and elbow pretty good. I made her an appointment to get checked out at the doctor's office on Monday (yesterday).

By Monday she said her hip was hurting more and her left leg was quite painful to step on. It's really hard to judge how injured someone is by what they say on the telephone. When I saw her move I realized this was not just a little bump. She was having a difficult time moving around.

The doctor's office took x-rays and today we received the result that her hip is not broken. Of course x-rays sometimes do not show everything. If none of her bones are broken she should start feeling better soon. We will give her a few days to start getting better, but if it's not better by next week I will have to take her back to the doctor for further tests. We can't have this getting worse because Mom can't take any pain medication stronger than Tylenol without some dire consequence.

We're sure hoping this is a temporary setback and Mom can once again make a turnaround in the direction of health. In the meantime, she has promised to wait for the mail to be delivered by the neighbors from now on. I sure hope she does!