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.
