Grandma got screwed

And now for an update on the patient.

You'll remember back in October I published this post talking about how my mother-in-law had fallen on our top step, broken her arm and was about to have surgery. Well, a lot's happened since that post.

For starters, as you can see by her x-ray, grandma got screwed good and hard four times right after her fall. Given her age and the position she was in, it was exactly what she needed.

Yeah, I'm making sexual innuendos at the expense of an 85-year old woman. Deal with it.

At her recent doctor visit, he was very pleased at her progress. Her arm had regained more movement than he would've expected from someone her age so soon.

She's also lost more than twelve pounds since she's been staying with us because she's eating much better thanks to my wife's cooking and not munching on all the chocolate she has lying around her house.

I don't know what the hell my excuse is.

Where she used to walk up our driveway so she didn't have to climb four steps, she, well, she still walks up the driveway. Except when I'm with her I make her walk the steps. She's a bit set in her ways and severely exercise resistant. Going up the steps is good for her. And of course, making an 85 year old woman work harder is just one of life's great joys.

My living room couch is her bed, and she has everything she needs pretty much within arm's reach - the good arm. And while I can't parade around half-dressed as I'm prone to do, I can still watch the flat-screen late into the night because Grandma drifts off fairly early and her hearing isn't what it used to be.

She'll have her driving privileges back soon, and then I imagine she'll be moving back to her house which she visits once a week after church to pick up a bag full of an obscene amount of junk mail I can only hope for the sake of our forests not all seniors are getting.(Yes, that sentence had 54 words - let's see you do it.)

Every once in awhile Grandma complains about the unfamiliar ache in her arm. Having had a steel plate and five screws in my arm from an auto accident years ago, I completely understand the feeling. It's a unique kind of pain, only made worse when the weather gets chilly or it rains. But it does have its benefits. I used to love setting off the metal detector at the airport. In a pre-9/11 world it was a lot of fun.

Anyway, I make a point of cutting off her complaining at the pass, because it doesn't help us or her in the long run. Instead, what I do is remind her she's not the first person to have a broken arm and she won't be the last (although this is the first broken bone she's ever had).

What I should do is tell her about the great racehorse Barbaro, and the 27 screws he had to endure. And then tell her in that gentle, compassionate, caring way anyone who knows me knows I have, the four little words that would make it all better.

You got off easy.

Wheel Of B-O-R-E-D-O-M

I once told my son I couldn’t imagine a more boring television host than Nick Lachey on The Sing-Off. He took a beat, then said, “Carson Daly.”

He was right of course. But if he said that today, I’d come back with “Pat Sajak.”

A few of you may remember from this post that my mother-in-law, Grandma to the kids, fell at our house, broke her arm and had to have surgery. That was back around October 19th. Since she got out of the hospital she’s been staying with us.

Seems one of the routines we’ve fallen (see what I did there?) into has been following up Jeopardy, which we always watch, with WOF, which we never watched until Grandma was invited to use our couch for a bed for a few weeks. It always reminds me of the old joke that Vanna White is so stupid they have to light the letters so she knows which ones to turn.

But just a few viewings tell you that's the least of this show’s problems.

Let’s start here – apparently the contestants are coached to ar-tic-u-late every word in the answers clearly, distinctly and loudly.

You know, the way people talk in the real world.

Sajak always saunters over to them in his neutral color suit that totally clashes with his spray tan, makes some lame joke in a voice that has no modulation or energy, and then has some excruciatingly awful jokey exchange with the announcer before prizes that the contestants are playing for are announced.

It should replace waterboarding at Gitmo.

Here’s the thing that probably makes it even more unbearable: Grandma is a little hard of hearing, so the volume has to be up. Way up. Hear it from down the block up.

I’m trying to stay social given the circumstances, but I’m finding it too much to take. I wind up doing exactly what I tell my kids not to do: going in my room, closing the door and shutting out the world.

Or at least lowering the volume on it.

Humerus ain't it

The top step strikes again.

When you come visit our house, there's a winding, brick walkway from the sidewalk to our front door. You climb four stairs from the street, then two more at the front door.

Those last two are the ones that get you.

A few years ago I personally tripped on the top step, went flying into the door jamb and cracked my head open. When I got to the ER, because the head is so vascular, I looked like I'd been at the scene of the murder. After a quick exam, the choice the doctor gave me was stitches or staples. I took the staples. I thought it would be some high tech piece of equipment that seamlessly and painlessly stapled the wound together so it could heal quickly. Not so much. It felt like a Swingline from Office Max.

Medical technology isn't nearly as sophisticated as you'd hope.

Anyway, last night, the top step claimed another victim.

My mother-in-law had picked up my daughter and was bringing her home. My daughter went into the house first, and Grandma was behind her when she caught her shoe on the top step and went flying into the door jamb with her full weight propelling her. She hit her right side hard, and broke her humerus bone just above the elbow.

The x-ray above isn't hers, but it's about what her injury looks like.

She's 85 years old, and tomorrow morning she'll have surgery to repair her arm. Then both her and her dog Barnabus will stay with us a bit while she recuperates.

Her outlook is good and she's in good spirits. Her blood pressure is 120/70, and despite her age she's never taken a pill for it a day in her life. Plus her side of the family usually goes to around 100, give or take.

Essentially what I'm saying is the door jamb didn't try hard enough. It's going to take more than surgery, healing and physical therapy afterwards to keep her down. She's going to be around a long, long time.

Which is exactly the way we like it.