Seriously

 NOT a good week for US here!

Since the snow last weekend, we have had beautiful weather 70's and even 80's, sunny and beautiful!! So why am I not posting progress on my shed project you ask?  

Life has a way of knocking the wind out of my sails and sends one challenge right after the other.

This past Tuesday evening my Mom fell at home and broke her left humerus right up below her shoulder joint.  She uses a walker full time in order to walk without falling, (supposed to stop her falling, but did not) She has fallen 3 times while using her walker. It is a balance problem since she has peripheral nueropathy meaning she has very little feeling in her legs, so she can't sense her feet too well...it creates horrible balance issues...so that is the problem exacerbated by having 2 hip replacements after spontaneous fractures due to osteoporosis. When you live to be 92 you will not go out with sound mind or body, trust me on this one. 

So she had her walker but she hung her toe on something and down she went her upper body slammed into the door frame on the way down and that fractured her arm...then she realized her "life line alert," I've fallen and can't get up button, was NOT on her neck...she had taken it off in prep for bedtime, she was not able to wiggle due to her arm being broken to get to the phone or the button....soooo

I was of course next door in my house, asleep...but I got up at 1:30 to shut off the ice maker which is quite noisy in my kitchen, saw her lights on and that is how I discovered her...she had been in the floor for 3 hrs! 

... I got her up but realized she had all the signs of a broken arm so took her to the ER and they verified it.  The orthopedic next morning said they don't normally do anything except put the arm in a sling for a humeral neck fracture...so that's all the care she received. 

Then her entire arm turned black and blue and swollen.  Since she can't walk without a walker and now she can't use a walker with one hand that makes her balance worse, she is pretty much out of commission, and she can do very little for herself.  I did get a wheel chair and that has helped ME to get her from bed to chair to bathroom etc...but now SHE depends on my help for everything...

My sister came down to give me a weekend break I go back to Mom's house tomorrow, I sure am happy to have the break...since the time frame is: the first 2 weeks are the worst, and then it's a 10-12 week healing process.

Just taking each day as it comes right now...I just want my mom to recover and hopefully be able to start walking again, she can walk as long as I am right there to insure she doesn't fall while using a quad cane, I can't hold her up by her left arm due to the break, so am using the tricks I learned while watching her in rehab before, a belt at her waist that I hold onto.

When something like this happens you start to second guess how the events could have been different, only if.  But we can't change anything that has already happened all we can do is go on, and wish for a better future. I know it could have been much worse, so thankful for that.

Hopefully during the coming days she will get used to doing things a little different, and I will feel like I can step outside to work on my project and get some well needed exercise and fresh air while she watches her westerns and naps in her recliner chair. 

Till then its a challenge to be cooped up inside.  

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.