this morning i got up, worked out, went to kohl’s, had a bunch of stuff to do before giving a massage, plus i needed to clean because we’re having some people over tomorrow night…and kevin called.  he was headed to the ER  – dad had fallen on the ice and they thought he broke his wrist.

as i was driving to the hospital i was thinking, “well, one wrist, it’s bad but not the worst thing…”

but he didn’t break his wrist.  he broke both of them.  i walked into his room and he was sitting there on the bed and his wrists looked swollen and incredibly painful.  he was being cheerful, because dad is almost always cheerful even when things aren’t going well.  they said they’d give him pain medication while we waited, but he refused it.

my dad, cheerful but very stubborn.

they took xrays and that went pretty quickly, and they told us he’d broken both wrists which we already knew.  but they had to get the orthopedic resident to come and look at him, and he had just finished operating on somebody so it would be an hour, or an hour and a half.  i don’t know why it was going to take him this long.  maybe they have to have a mandatory rest period after doing one operation, before moving on to the next person?   i don’t know.

by this time david had showed up, and he, kevin and i went to the cafeteria for lunch.  as we left the ER, i noticed that most of the rooms seemed to be filled.  lots of people lying around, most of them all by themselves.

lots and lots of waiting. kevin told dad the story about when he was biking on a country road and a guy driving a big gravel truck hit him ON PURPOSE and was basically trying to kill him and drove off, leaving kevin unconscious in the gravel at the side of the road.  when he woke up, he realized he’d dislocated his shoulder and when he finally was treated, he also had a detached retina and he was lucky to be alive.  dad then related the story of when he and david hit a semi when driving back from chicago in an ice storm – it was the last day of an exhibit about chinese treasures of the ancient world or something like that, and dad just couldn’t miss it.

i also did a lot of texting even though there was a sign in the room saying TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONES BECAUSE THEY MIGHT INTERFERE WITH THE MONITORING EQUIPMENT.  but they weren’t monitoring anything.  i kept amy and jim up to date on what was happening, and what had happened.

as Dad fell, he put his hands behind him.  the doctor told us that breaking wrists was the most common thing to happen when falling on the ice, but that dad’s break was the exact opposite of the direction it usually went.

dad has always been unique.

the doctor finally showed up, only a half hour after they said he would, and then we all had to leave while he set both wrists one at a time.  kevin and i went home and i walked their dogs shortie and gizmo, and we waited to hear from mom and she finally called.

we went to their house and dad was sitting in his chair with both arms in slings, resting on pillows.  he said the pain was bad, but he would only take one Tylenol.  he said they stuck a huge needle in his arms to inject the pain medicine, and they didn’t just stick it in, they “ground it around a lot.”   a very unpleasant thing to think about.

dad doesn’t like taking pain medication.  and have i mentioned that he’s stubborn?

i just called mom, who said that the pain was getting worse, but she couldn’t get him to take any more tylenol.

what a day.  tomorrow night they were going to paul and wanda’s house to celebrate new year’s eve, a tradition that they’ve been doing…almost forever.  they take turns going to each other’s houses.

but not tomorrow night.

it could be worse.  but it’s going to be a long couple of months.

we’re all exhausted now.

ok then,

grace