End stages

Singing in the penalty box.
Mom in blue, second from left.

Mom had a couple great days last week. She ate two servings of fish on Thursday, two desserts, and made cupcakes and did a storytelling session.

I was gone to Michigan from Friday to early Sunday morning, and had calls and messages when I got back that Mom was at the hospital. I found her in the ER, and spent the day with her as they moved her up to a regular room. She had a broken femur --  a displacement of the femur from the hip, with fractures in the bone going down toward the knee.

Nobody at her place was able to tell me how this happened, but they are doing an "investigation" and we'll see what they come up with. She has significant osteoporosis, and Dr. Riordan said her injury was consistent with a fall or a hard bump, but that it might not take a lot of force to cause it.

The doctors gave us the options of repairing the fracture with surgery, which, if she survives it, would necessitate a long, painful rehabilitation process just to get her back to her wheelchair, where she doesn't even use her legs, or not repairing it and just managing the pain. Dr. Hirpara said if it was his mother, he wouldn't choose surgery. Good enough for us.

Hirpara said a fracture like this, after her earlier broken hip, is often a turning point toward the "end stage." I asked "A year?" He said two months, and that was generous.

A case worker will meet with me today to discuss hospice, which will start here and move with her back to her place.

Yesterday mom lay in the ER in bed, asleep, but reaching up and moving her arms like she was directing a choir. Music is where she started, and maybe that was it.

She's sleeping this morning, and I think slept all night, the pain medication keeping her at ease.

She weighs 108 pounds.