So in an earlier post I mentioned about a crazy time. Here is what happened.
November 22nd was like any other day. I was getting ready to go to school to do my cougar school pride Friday and then head to do a Girl Scout meeting. 5 minutes before walking out the door, I got a phone call from my dad. He told me that my mom had fallen down the stairs and broke her leg. He was a bit upset in his phone call and he didn't have much news for me because the paramedics were still there figuring out how to get her up the stairs. Talk about a blow to me. I was on the phone with my dad for all of a minute but what he had to say took me by surprised. When I got off the phone, I cried uncontrollably and dropped to my knees asking my Heavenly Father to look over them and help them in any way they could. I normally have much to say to my Heavenly Father but I have to admit, I was a little lost for words in my prayer. I am grateful that He can feel what I was feeling.
Well I composed myself and headed to school to do my job. After school, I lost it again telling my children what happened to their Grammie. I lost it again when my sweet hubby ran outside to give me a hug before I had to run to Girl Scouts. I don't know why I was super worried but I just was scared for my mom. I lost it all the way to Girl Scouts talking to Kimmy but got myself back under control for my meeting. During my meeting, my dad called me to tell me what the latest update was. I did lose it again for a minute but didn't want to scare all the girls so I composed and went back to work.
Let me tell you what happened to my mom. She was carrying some bags downstairs and her pant legs were a bit too long. The pants got caught under my mom's shoe and she missed a step because of it. When she came down hard on the next step, her ankle popped. This is an ankle that she broke 20 plus years ago and you always hear people say they never get strong again. Well when her ankle popped, she went down. And when I say down, I mean she took a tumble down the stairs. When my dad ran to see what happened, he found my mom crumbled at the bottom of the stairs. He noticed her leg looking normal till he noticed my mom's shoelaces of her shoe touching her bum. He looked closer and noticed her bone was sticking straight out of her leg. Immediately he told her to stay put and not move and not to look around. He then called the paramedics to come. He also called the Davis's, their wonderful neighbors, to see if they could move the van and help the ambulance know where to go. A couple cops showed up first. One cop my parents have known for years and he was a little grossed out at what my mom looked like. The paramedics showed up and were a bit worried about moving anything so they called the doctor on duty to come look and tell them how to proceed. She came quickly and was a great doctor. She told the paramedics that they couldn't do any more damage than my mom did so they just needed to straighten her out and put an air cast on her and get her to the hospital. One of the paramedics worked with my mom when my mom was a CNA and he was joking around with her and was really sweet. My mom did go into shock a bit but she was a trooper. She honestly never looked at what happened and that was probably a good thing. They got her to the hospital and called the Orthopedic surgeon in Poky and sent him the xrays. He responded right away that he would be to Soda in a couple hours to perform surgery on mom. When he looked at the xrays, he realized that mom did some major damage to her tibia (broke it in many places). So this was going to be a long processes but he knew he could do it.
So now that you know what happened, you can understand why I was upset. No one wants to see their parent go thru something like that. Dad kept us updated on mom's condition and surgery that first night. I, in the meantime, was keeping all my mom's siblings updated. The next day I was able to talk to my mom and just hearing her voice help my nerves. She was doing ok. They did understand this was going to be an extremely long process. Sunday after church, we ran up there for a couple hours to see her. Seeing my mom getting herself out of her bed and heading to the bathroom, all without using her 1 foot (which was surrounded with a metal cage), helped me feel so much better. I knew my mom was a strong woman but I couldn't imagine her getting thru this.
So this changed all the plans for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Birthday, etc. We were going to be making more trips to Soda to see how we can help. I also needed to help my parents anyway I could by being their legs.
These past two months have been crazy... lots of running around and traveling. I don't mind. Anything I can do to keep my parents happy, keep my mom's spirits up, etc.
We had a great Christmas and I do hope I am helping my parents. The latest update on mom is her skin around the wound wasn't healing, it was dying. This was to be expected so they cut around her wound and did a wound vac on it. It is a good thing and helping out a lot. But while in her leg cleaning stuff out, the doctor found infection. After testing the infection, they found it to be Mercer... a pretty serious infection. Immediately, the dr got my mom on medicine to try and get rid of it. Mercer is pretty bad and could take up to 7 months to get rid of. Apparently her body has been a carrier of it for awhile (could explain some of the sickness my mom has had for a bit). The good news is they have been doing the medicine for 2 weeks now and it isn't getting worse. So a minor setback and on Jan 13, mom goes back to the dr to see what the next step is. Could be another surgery to clean up some more stuff, could be a surgery to take out the plate in the leg to help the infection heal, could be getting the metal cage off of her... kind of up in the air. Just have to wait and be positive.
I have to say, I am super grateful for the prayers that have been answered by Heavenly Father concerning my mom. The power of prayer is strong and that was no more evident than when this happened and many people prayed for her. Many quotes from the scriptures come to mind during this trial and all I hope is my mom keeps her spirits up and remembers this too shall pass.
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