Decisions

It gets more difficult to decide what to write about here.  The reason is because events go in no particular order in my head.  I am afraid of writing something that is not truthful, but know that if that happens it is only in the order of the details.  From rehab she went to the hospital so many times and I forget the what and why of each of those times.  I have to remind myself that is not what is important here, but for the sake of the reader I want to be honest that some of these events will definitely be told out of order and sometimes I will have her go back to the hospital for something and that might not have been the time she went to the hospital for that particular thing. 

So, how do you decide on a rehab you say?  Well, they court you in the hospital and you pretty much go with the one who has the reputation and agrees to take the person who is rehabbing.  So we went with one and the EMTs came to pick her up.  I met her over there and I can honestly say that I was not impressed.  The building itself from the outside looked haunted and from the inside appeared to be falling apart.  Mom's doctor was a woman who I believe was russian and appeared to be 70 years old.  I know how bad that sounds but I also know what we went through and I wanted a tough, healthy doctor who could make everything appear better.  Well, mom's doctor came to be a light in the storm and grew a wonderful relationship with her patient. 

We got her settled in and let me say, she was feeling much better.  The only thing that had to remain a constant were the pain pills. Especially needing to have her leg cleaned and rewrapped every single day the pain was more intense than anything I have ever witnessed.  From knee to ankle it was all exposed nerve.  It was important that she have a pain pill 30 minutes prior to the work they would do on her leg.  This would come to be the biggest beef I had with the rehab hospital.  Apparently, they could not quite get the timing of those damn pain pills down and often the work began before any pain pill had been administered and often she was calling for over a half hour for her pain pill.   I actually got so mad that I called the counselor who worked with us in the rehab and said, "If they cannot keep the pills on the schedule I am happy to show up everyday at the time the pills are needed and remind them and if I am working I can call them,"  Interestingly it got a little better after that. 

Physical therapy started right away and mom began to walk with a walker and could take herself down the hall to the bathroom as long as someone was there if she fell.  I began work again and would work until 3:30 and then head right to rehab.  Krista would go stay with our friends until I got home.  Usually they would feed her and I would grab Mcdonalds for myself on the way home.  I stayed as late as I could and often it was such a struggle mentally for me to leave.  I brought magazines and books on CDs and tried to make mom laugh as much as possible.  She needed to eat lots of protein for the leg to heal so I would stop at Elsa's everyday and bring her soup and coffee and myself a coffee.  We made lists of things we would need for her to come home.  A temporary ramp and some different things in her apartment to help her get around until she was fully healed. 

Michael came to visit and brought her outside in her wheel chair and then I realized I could do that too.  The next day I brought her out to a place I could sit too.  It was the PERFECT fall day and we laughed and made plans for the future.  It appeared this had just been a small blip in our path and we were on the way back to our plans for the future. 

It was scary because that leg was going to take a long time to heal.  It was hard on mom because physical therapy was not easy and there were times she wanted to give up.  I can remember one time she got extra mad and said,  "you should have just let me die."  I was so upset but since then I have read so much about people needing to teach themselves to walk again and such, and I realize I was not really sympathetic to her journey at that time.  She was in pain almost constantly and physical therapy doesn't stop because you have pain. 

It sounds better here I know and it was, but it became hard to juggle wanting to see mom and just be with her, plus bring her anything she asked for, the food from the restaurant and do her laundry and get that to her in what she felt was a reasonable time, plus be a good and attentive mom and a good and attentive teacher.  Mentally I was starting to lose it going back and forth each day.  What I really wanted was to stop working for awhile so I could see mom while Krista was at school and then be there for Krista.  I began to contemplate a short leave of absence.  Mom was getting better but she preferred having me there when they cleaned and wrapped her leg.  She needed someone to be on top of them about the pills.  She also needed company and that is what family is all about.  I had some heavy decisions to make.  Little did I know that God had other plans and soon all decisions would be lifted from me only to be replaced with bigger concerns and much bigger decisions.