Not the best week

A lot of things happened last week – and not many of those things were good. Nick’s Dad has been having more problems. I know that at the age of one hundred we can’t expect great improvements, but he is having real trouble standing. 

He hasn’t walked much lately but he could stand for short periods, to shave, to get dressed and to transfer from one chair to another. But he can’t now. A couple of times he’s tried to get out of bed only to find himself in the floor and completely unable to rise. That meant he could be there a while. The ladies who help out couldn’t get him up so they would call one of the kids. A problem with living to be a hundred is that your kids aren’t spring chickens either. Two are in their 70’s and the others in their 60’s. 

 

They finally took him to the hospital and after he came home for a short time – they realized that he really couldn’t stay there. The oldest daughter took him to her house as she looked for a rehab bed in a facility hopefully close by. While he was there, daughter’s husband hurt his back trying to help. They finally got him a bed in the same facility where my MIL lived the last few months of her life. It seems to be a good place, but just a few minutes ago Nick tells me they’ve taken him back to the hospital because of ‘rattling’ and rough breathing after he threw up. They are afraid of aspiration. As we all know, old age is not for the faint hearted.

 

Then three days ago I got a text from the daughter of my best friend, my teaching partner for ten years before she abandoned me for retirement. While on a short trip she fell – and broke a vertebra her neck in three places. The first hospital wouldn’t take her, they said she needed a trauma center. She had to travel two and a half hours away to Tennessee. 

They decided she didn’t need surgery, but she will be in a neck brace for twelve weeks – can’t take it off for a minute. Her daughter went to be with her and she and her dad got a hotel close by. He coughed all night and yep, the next morning he tested positive for Covid. He’s fully vaccinated, but he’s really not feeling well. Their son is with him, while the daughter stays with her mom. Everyone is scared my friend will come down with Covid also. Coughing? In a neck brace? With a broken neck? Well, you see the problem. In the midst of all this the daughter gets a text from her husband telling her that their daughter, age ten, just started her period for the first time. Don’t you know she wants her mom or grandma with her. Talk about a hectic time. The daughter is a teacher so throw that into the mix too.

 

Thanks for listening to my woes, but I will end on a high note. Yesterday the warrior princess, after dealing with seven and a half year with seizures, has now gone four and a half months without one – the longest seizure free period since they began. That seems like a miracle – now if we can just get a couple more.