Never a dull moment

My cell phone was on vibrate all morning, so I didn't realize it was blowing up until I remembered to check my messages around 1 pm. When I saw that I had 10 missed calls from my sister, I knew SOMETHING was going on.

Turns out, my mother (known as Deb on the blog, hereafter referred to as Gimpy) fell last night and broke her leg in two places (right below the knee and above the ankle). She got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and due to a blood pressure medicine that she WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING, she apparently blacked out and fell. Thank GOD my stepdad was home (he usually works nights and he was actually supposed to be at work last night, but then the overtime got cancelled at the last minute) because Gimpy was absolutely unable to move. They had to call the ambulance and everything. (On a side note, Missy actually heard the call go out over the scanner at work last night, but she got a phone call before she heard the address. All she caught was the "55-year-old woman fell from a standing position" part. She later told me that it caught her attention because most of the "fall calls" are usually REALLY old people, like 80, and she remembered thinking, "Wow, that's kind of young--they must have been drunk or something." Nope, not drunk--just our mother).

Gimpy went into surgery this afternoon; everything went fine and she should be back home either Sunday or Monday. I'll be flying into Michigan next Saturday for my Christmas break, so I'll be there to keep an eye on the old girl and make sure she's not taking any unauthorized meds, etc. I'll also be helping with a great deal of the Christmas shopping, cooking (aka, heating up her Lean Cuisine and ordering the pizza), and other various tasks, because she's not supposed to be on her feet very much over the next couple of weeks. (That's about as long as they expect Gimpy to be out of work.)

So, all things considered, we're pretty lucky and it could have been a lot worse. Of course, this shoots my plan of laying on the couch and eating bon-bons for 2 weeks all to shit, but hey--you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.

I draw the line and helping her shower and pee, though. She's on her own there.

UPDATE: I just called the hospital (6:15) and talked to my stepdad. Gimpy's still pretty out of it, but she knew I was on the phone. I'll call back tonight, but I don't expect she'll be much of a conversationalist till tomorrow.