The Fall

The scariest sound I’ve heard in a long time…maybe forever…was mom’s wake up call at 6:00 a.m. this morning. 

“Help me!  I’ve fallen!” she called.

I don’t know how I got to the living room so fast…David right behind me.  Mom was sprawled on the floor next to her bed.  It took both of us to lift her – carefully – unable to put an arm under her right arm where her lymph nodes were removed.  David lifted her left arm as I wrapped my hands around her waist to get her to her knees, then standing, then onto the potty, her original destination.

It is a horrible sight to see your 76-year-old mother lying on a cold, hard floor.  My heart broke.  After we got her off the potty and back on the bed, I checked her arm and leg for bruising.  It wasn’t till I moved across the room and looked back at her that I saw the egg forming above her right eyebrow.  Her head had banged the floor.  I raced for an ice bag, but she refused to hold it on the bump for very long.

I sat watching her fifteen minutes later, my heart still racing, the bile rising in my throat.  I realized once again the blessing of David’s presence in the house.  Had she fallen before he arrived, I don’t believe I would have been able to get her up.  The reality of the past fifteen minutes hit like a slap in the face and I could not stop the tears that started.   David and Mom were both alarmed.  Mom even tried to reassure me, “It’s not your fault.”

When one is charged with the care of a dying parent it feels like anything that goes wrong is the fault of the caregiver.  Medications that are given late, being unable to help the patient find comfort, being unable to meet the request to “just make this end”…it all hurts.  We are waiting now for the hospice nurse to come and do a better check to make sure we didn’t miss anything.  David insisted that we give mom her medications…I was afraid to let her go to sleep since she has had a hit on her head.  But she’s sleeping in her bed now.

David and I will swap nights sleeping in the living room with mom from now on.  We cannot take a chance of another fall.  We’ve been warned that since the cancer is in her bones that they are very brittle now and could break easily.  We don’t want that.

My heart is discouraged this morning at my inability to protect her.  I’m sure she felt the same way when I was a child and fell and hurt myself…just another sign of the reversal of our roles.  If you are reading this, please pray that we can find a way to protect her from falls, short of keeping her in bed permanently.  She is still coherent enough to want to be independent…but that stubborn streak may do all of us in.

On a brighter note…Penny the pup (15 years old) and Callie the kitty (16 years old) will NOT be put down.  Mom’s dear friend Tracie is opening her home to the orphans.  They are familiar with Tracie and we believe this will be an excellent home for Mom and Dad’s faithful companions.  A big thank you to cousin Suzanne and her partner Laurie who opened our minds to the idea of allowing them to continue enjoying life by offering their home in the Dallas area for Penny and Callie.  They helped us make the decision to move a little closer to home so it would be less stressful on the pets.  There really are wonderful people in this world.

Update:  The nurse just left.  Mom’s goose-egg is swelling down into the upper eye area, but that appears to be the biggest consequence we’ll face from this fall.  She has also rubbed her elbow a few times, but is able to easily move it so the nurse did not suspect any fracture or bone breakage.  Hospice is going to send a bed rail so that we can keep mom in bed.  They will also send a “baby monitor” so that I can hear every movement in my room…another reversal in our roles.  She also discovered that the air pad under mom’s sheets is not holding air and she will request that a new pad come out today.  Mom had complained the other day that her bed was too soft and I wasn’t  sure what to do because I knew we had it set on its highest setting.

So it’s 8:00 a.m. and mom has fallen, been picked up, had her meds, been visited by a nurse and I’m dressed, have a load of laundry started, a blog is written and I've just finished breakfast.  I predict a busy day ahead…weak smile.