Discombobulation

It’s been an unsettling few days. My mum has broken her hip and is currently in hospital. The break has been pinned and plated as a hip replacement was deemed unsuitable at this moment but not ruled out in the future - and Darling Daughter and I have been in Kent over the weekend so we could magic up some cheer and optimism. And pyjamas. Mum requested new pyjamas because she didn’t like the buttons on her current nightwear. Don’t ask. 

Mum got through the operation okay. The surgeon declared her to be in ‘good nick’ although she was given a blood transfusion pre-operation to ‘warm her up.’ And she was about to have another one just as we were leaving yesterday because she has, for a few years now, been atrociously bad at maintaining her iron levels. What upsets her most is that she doesn’t remember doing anything that would have caused her to fall. No tripping, no sliding, no drunken brawls. We think, perhaps, her femur was on the point of collapse and it just went. And there was nothing she could have done about it. Her right arm is black and blue from wrist to elbow, where I guess she put it out to try and stop herself from falling, and she’s got a hefty bruise on her left wrist, too. 

I think she’s enjoying not having to cook her meals. She is definitely enjoying the pots of ice-cream, so thank goodness they’ve got her on insulin for the moment. I took her some fig rolls because she loves them but hasn’t had one for years because of her diabetes. Anyway, I offered her one and she said, ‘I’d better check to see if it’s okay for me to have one.’ And I thought, Mum, you’ve been knocking back ice-cream. I said, ‘Mum, you’re on insulin, you’ve broken your hip and you’re stuck in hospital. Have a bloomin’ fig roll.’

So she did. 

She’s had her bed moved ninety degrees to the left so she can see what’s going on in the corridor from her room. She’s doing bits of physio. She’s sleeping a lot which is only to be expected after a general anaesthetic. And once the hospital team are happy she is healing okay, then she will be moved to the cottage hospital for a couple of weeks of rehabilitation. 

‘It’ll be like a holiday, Mum,’ I said, showing her the cottage hospital website. ‘They do fun activities.’

She rolled her eyes and five minutes later, she’d nodded off again.