I guess that overall the year has been ok, except for not taking any trips (that I recall) and many constant cat issues and the whole gallbladder malarkey.
But good lord…
The last time I wrote here was December 18th.
The next day I finished putting up all my xmas decor/lights and was pleased that things were festive plus I love to have the lights up at night because they’re so dang cheery.
That afternoon I called Mom, I can’t recall why. I asked her where she was. She said “I’m on my way home from Kohl’s I got hit by a car.”
WHAT???!!!!!!
Mom was leaving Kohl’s at 3:49 p.m. and in the crosswalk. She looked over and saw a white car, maybe a Honda or a Toyota, coming at her, but she knew the car would stop.
It didn’t.
The next thing she knew, she was lying on the ground and the car was sitting on her foot.
Yeah, sitting on her foot.
People ran up to her and told the woman in the car to back up off Mom’s foot, so she did. The woman, who Mom described as “old, maybe in her 70s” was quite distraught, as a person would be who just ran over an even more elderly person. Or I guess who ran over anybody at all not matter their age.
People helped Mom up off the ground and the car lady asked if Mom would tell her her name, but Mom said “No, I just want to go home.”
So my eighty-six year-old mother climbed in her car and drove home.
Whew. Because I was still not feeling so energetic after the Covid, Amy took Mom to Urgent Care. We had many phone calls, trying to figure out which one to go to with the least amount of wait.
In hindsight of course she should have taken her straight to the ER.
Coulda woulda shoulda.
They got to Urgent Care where they x-rayed Mom’s foot and her elbow, and her wrist, because she’d fallen on her arm.
I can’t recall the exact timing, I just know that at some point they thought the bones in her foot were crushed. She had to go to the ER.
Of course they had to wait around there a good long time but she did get into a room instead of on a bed in the hallway, where many patients were lying around.
This is the miraculous part – her bones weren’t crushed after all. All her toes were broken and they wrapped her leg up to her knee in many layers of cotton and then put a cast over that. Her elbow was fractured but it was very slight and they just put it in a sling. Her wrist was fine.
We decided that I’d spend the night with Mom, and she and Amy arrived back at Mom’s house at around 11:00 p.m.
I told Mom that if she needed anything in the night, I’d be in the next room and she just needed to call me.
We’d gone to bed at about one, and at two Mom called. I rushed into her room and she said “I think I’m dying.”
They had given her a prescription for hydrocodone but no actual pills to take home.
Mom normally doesn’t take anything at all. I told her I was sorry, that there was nothing I could do for her.
She called me again at 2:30. Again, “I feel like I’m dying.”
Mom normally has little or no pain, and of course she’d been run over by a car and everything hurt.
I looked around in her medicine cabinet and found a bottle of aspirin and gave her a couple. I told her that should help her sleep, and apologized again for not getting her anything else.
She didn’t sleep well, I didn’t sleep well, and at this point everything that went on was a blur. I spent two nights at her house then we decided it was better her for her to stay at our house, so Kevin took the bed frame off our bed so she’d be able to get in and out of it pretty easily. She had to sleep in our bed because it’s on the first floor, and Kevin and I slept in the upstairs guest room with Marley, who was delighted to have the company.
Mom’s cat Hobbs came over to stay since it’d be easier to take care of her at our house, and once you have six cats, what’s one more?
Things were slightly mad ever since, and Kevin was still positive for Covid, so to be safe, Mom stayed in the bedroom.
He tested negative on Christmas so Mom was able to come out of her confinement and have a meal and watch some TV with us.
Whew.
Thursday the 29th I took Mom to the orthopedic place and they cut her cast off and gave her a little boot. The nice guy showed us the x-rays of her broken toes plus her ankle has a slight fracture. We all marveled at Mom’s incredible luck at being injured so minimally.
We’d been anticipating Mom being incapacitated for a while, and had managed to wrangle her a good wheelchair after lots of stress trying to make that happen.
Didn’t need it.
I took Mom home and all was good.
The whole thing seems surreal now. So many different things had to happen , like I called Kohl’s because we wanted to find out the name of the woman who hit her, because we figured her insurance should pay for it. They did have video footage but we couldn’t see it without filing a police report, and Mom and I did that over the phone on the 20th. The officer didn’t call me back and I finally called a few days ago. Her case had been turned over to the Detective Bureau, said the person on the phone at the police department, but they’re “understaffed and overworked” so who knows when we’ll find out anything.
People have asked if we’re going to sue but we’re not because it would involve lawyers and she wouldn’t end up getting any money because of the expense, plus of course who knows if we’ll find the woman’s name, plus it’s not like the woman did it intentionally and it wasn’t a hit and run.
It was a hit and Mom got in her car and drove off.
So far Mom has received two letters from slimy lawyers who want to help her sue somebody. One of them is from Wilmette, so they must have statewide access to police reports. Ridiculous.
Things have just been so crazy.
There’s an even longer version of this with many other things involved that have made me beyond frazzled and stressed and wiped out. It’s too much to go into here, plus I feel that too much info would infringe on Mom’s privacy, but if you have my phone number you’re welcome to call and I can fill you in. Of, better still, if you have Mom’s number, she’s always happy to chat.
Meanwhile, yesterday morning I was rushing around like crazy, trying to get ready to give a massage and Mom texted me to say that her foot feels much better without the boot and she’d rather not wear it.
So while going mad with the rushing I had to implore my Energizer Bunny mother to wear the damn boot.
I finally convinced her that if she didn’t wear it, it might not heal probably and maybe she’d have to have her ankle re-broken and have surgery and a cast again…
I’m pretty confident that I convinced her, but for good measure I told Amy about it so she’d be on the case.
Whew. That’s about all I have to say for the end of this year.
Meanwhile…here are some photos from when I went running deep in the old part of the woods, before I got Covid and didn’t have the energy to run, before Mom got run over, before the bitter cold set in.
This was November 29th, and at first the trail was decent…
…But then there were many many fallen trees. I had to scramble around quite a bit to make my way over and under and past the branches.
This might have been the worst spot.
But of course since then things went downhill. I actually did go for an amazingly slow run a couple of days ago because after the bitterly cold time of bitter coldness and some snow, it was fairly warm outside. I couldn’t figure out why I was jogging so slowly and then remember about the Covid.
I was hoping to at least do some yoga or something today but I think it’s past time for any of that. Instead, chocolate and wine is in order.
Surely, surely the new year will be better…
Like I said, many worse things could have happened.
I hope you have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve. Kevin and I will hopefully watch a “Doctor Who” but then again he might fall asleep before it starts. That happened last night, and I was able to spend some quality time with a few of our cats. When you have this many and so many of them are desperate for attention, there’s never quite enough time to properly pet them enough.
Finally, finally, here’s Marley on Kevin’s lap on December 18th.
Good kitty!
ok ok ok,
Mrs. thank god 2022 is just about over hughes.
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