Mom’s Birthday ‘Celebration’ In The Hospital

by Kevin Burton

   My mother spent her 89^th birthday last month in a hospital ER room.  Yeah, she really knows how to celebrate.

   I had a post about her 89^th birthday 89 percent finished. That was about a month ago.  Had to scrap it.

   On her birthday she fell. It was her second fall within a week and there was another fall maybe seven weeks before that.

   We were greatly blessed in that she did not hit her head in any of these falls and did not break any bones. But after the third fall she was hospitalized for observation. After three days there she was sent to a rehab facility in the town north of me.

   That time period was a blessing. They gave her exercises to do to build her strength and stamina. She had not been exercising or getting around much.

   The staff at rehab was excellent, very good at communicating with the family, prompt, friendly, professional, and every Thursday was ice cream day. We could not have asked for anything more. The doctors and nurses were pleased with her progress and she was released just before Independence Day.

   Because she had not been using certain muscles very much, she is now quite sore, having gone through a pretty good ongoing workout.

   Pulling from my experience, I equate that to the second day of wrestling practice. On the first day everyone is excited and flying all over the mat.  Come day two your body gives you a reminder that you haven’t been using those muscles much. You can’t move!

   And ours were young bodies at the time. Mom is 89.

       The period of soreness that the medical staff warned her about kicked in just before her release. Now she is home and a home health team will be checking in on her two or three times a week for two or three weeks.

   I’ve been looking for a plateau of sorts, a place where mom’s life settles down so I can write a proper update. It’s beginning to dawn on me that we’re not going to get that. It’s looking as if there will always be challenges, changes, things that make us swerve on life’s road. 

So in our swerving, we’re holding onto Psalm 118: 24 (KJV): “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

We’re needing to keep it basic.  Enjoy the time you have, make the best of it, or rather watch God create the best for you.

All these recent events as I look back on them, have God’s care and compassion all over them. I’m embarrassed to say that even after all these years I don’t often see it that way in the present.

   Our pending present includes the heart-wrenching decision to move mom from assisted living to what they now call skilled nursing. That’s a nursing home, the home.  She fears the thought of it. I hate the thought of moving her there.

   “I won’t last long in a place like that,” she has already said.

   But we can’t leave her in assisted living if she is not navigating her environment safely. We can’t leave her in a position where she is likely to fall again. The home health team will be helping her maintain the abilities she has and ultimately help the family make the right decisions.

   There was a day in 1972 when my parents dropped me off at a residential school for the blind because it was the right thing to do. I’ve already written about how their decision has come full circle as I try to take care of Mom (Love, Tears And Doing The Right Thing, July 16, 2021).

   On a recent Thursday morning I opened the dryer and raked the clean clothes out into a big green laundry basket.  I took the basket in both hands and walked it up a flight of 13 stairs. Three stairs, then a landing, then ten more stairs.

   When I got to the master bedroom upstairs, while still holding the basket, I used the thumb and index finger of my left hand to turn the doorknob. When the door opened I nudged it with my left foot so I could go in and put the basket on the bed.

   This is all unremarkable, except I was thinking of my mother. She can’t do those things anymore, stairs, carrying, two tasks simultaneously with one hand. It frustrates her. In her mind, she is active, capable. She knows what to do, but her body won’t let her. I had these thoughts on a Thursday before her birthday.

   But on the yesterday Thursday, a physical therapist visited, and Mom came away encouraged and eager to do the work to maintain her independence. It was the Thursday that the Lord had made. In it, mom and I both rejoiced.