Good news, everyone, the Queen Mum passed her knee surgery with flying colors!!
She is now fully bionified. She was the golden child of physical therapy, achieving a full 111 degrees of flexion (say that in a Captain Kirk voice: "one--hundred-----degrees of--FLEXION!") only a week and a half after surgery. So far her pain has been much less than she had been warned it would be, and she was dragging her walker up the stairs by herself on day nine (this was not an approved use of her new knee, by the way). Go figure.
The adventure did not come without a few bumps in the road, of course, but fortunately there were doctors and nurses to answer our obsessive questions 482 times a day...or night. There were also plenty of male nursing techs to help my mother in and out of the bathroom and shower. Herself, existing all her life as a reasonably modest woman, found that modesty is a thing one can pretty quickly part with when you're wearing a gown that doesn't close in back--thereby proving that, yes indeed, there is always room for change in our lives. I myself learned that pajamas are a perfectly reasonable outfit for a 7:00 a.m. doctor's visit when one is sleeping on a rollout bed in the hospital room. It's still good at 11:30 a.m., too, when you just haven't gotten around to changing yet. Those fluffy, striped socks were cheap entertainment for the staff, no doubt, and I was glad to help relieve any job stress that they might have been feeling. That's me, always willing to take one for the team. In my fuzzy socks.
We also learned that if your caretaker is watching "Mr. Bean" at medication time, there is just the slightest chance that she will attempt to overmedicate you. It's an attentional thing. There's really no need to discuss this any further.
So I guess the take home message from this is: you just never know. Worrying, planning, and obsessing will only take you so far until you get to the Real Thing. Things that we didn't anticipate happening, happened. That which we were fraught with worry over turned out to be minor problems. Hopefully we'll learn from this and next time approach things with a little more aplomb...although, frankly, I doubt it. But you never know.
Another item in the family update post is that my sister's husband also passed his car wreck with only a few broken ribs. Well, and a whole lot of pain. But still, I saw pictures of the car after the Jaws of Life had its way with it, and we were all quite grateful that he got away with no more than that. So we're all high-fiving Jesus and feeling groovy these days. Hope you are, too!
She is now fully bionified. She was the golden child of physical therapy, achieving a full 111 degrees of flexion (say that in a Captain Kirk voice: "one--hundred-----degrees of--FLEXION!") only a week and a half after surgery. So far her pain has been much less than she had been warned it would be, and she was dragging her walker up the stairs by herself on day nine (this was not an approved use of her new knee, by the way). Go figure.
The adventure did not come without a few bumps in the road, of course, but fortunately there were doctors and nurses to answer our obsessive questions 482 times a day...or night. There were also plenty of male nursing techs to help my mother in and out of the bathroom and shower. Herself, existing all her life as a reasonably modest woman, found that modesty is a thing one can pretty quickly part with when you're wearing a gown that doesn't close in back--thereby proving that, yes indeed, there is always room for change in our lives. I myself learned that pajamas are a perfectly reasonable outfit for a 7:00 a.m. doctor's visit when one is sleeping on a rollout bed in the hospital room. It's still good at 11:30 a.m., too, when you just haven't gotten around to changing yet. Those fluffy, striped socks were cheap entertainment for the staff, no doubt, and I was glad to help relieve any job stress that they might have been feeling. That's me, always willing to take one for the team. In my fuzzy socks.
We also learned that if your caretaker is watching "Mr. Bean" at medication time, there is just the slightest chance that she will attempt to overmedicate you. It's an attentional thing. There's really no need to discuss this any further.
So I guess the take home message from this is: you just never know. Worrying, planning, and obsessing will only take you so far until you get to the Real Thing. Things that we didn't anticipate happening, happened. That which we were fraught with worry over turned out to be minor problems. Hopefully we'll learn from this and next time approach things with a little more aplomb...although, frankly, I doubt it. But you never know.
Another item in the family update post is that my sister's husband also passed his car wreck with only a few broken ribs. Well, and a whole lot of pain. But still, I saw pictures of the car after the Jaws of Life had its way with it, and we were all quite grateful that he got away with no more than that. So we're all high-fiving Jesus and feeling groovy these days. Hope you are, too!
(Photo brought to you, not surprisingly, by the strange but glorious AJ)
9 comments:
Thank God! It's so good to hear that SOME news can be GOOD news! May your mama continue to improve. Now we want a Mother Mary image with two arms pulling for "You go girl!"
While I am very glad to hear that your mum passed with flying colors, I am not so happy that because of this post, I am now going to go around speaking like Captain Kirk in my head for entire day. Thanks.
aplomb is for the elegantly indecisive...so let's have some! or not!
and modesty--well, with all the sub-ambulatory knee surgery victims, mommies-to-be-any-dang-minute-now, and high-noon rollout bed sleepers gadding about in you're aaaaaaaverage hospital environment--well, all i can say is anytime modesty does take a beating, it's a well-earned one.
Luuuuke...use the Captain Kirk voice....
Go. Now. To Moi's Blob. You've. Been.
TAGGED.
for a second there i thought the moi was tagging *me*. whew!
No, AJ, but you can certainly play, given your way with woids. Just post back here.
Yay Queen Mum, Molly MacBean Rocks with the Big Monkey. And Nurse Wretched..err Wicked! did a wonderful job (I secretly think it was the magic socks).
I see Captain Kirk and can only think, now, of Boston Legal. Nyuk, nyuk.
very well to moi; i have posted my thing to the April 5 entry, having been officially challenged there along with the lurkers and drive-byers.
and for moi *and* Doris Rose, for whom now the only way around the Shat is straight through him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eISBTBwWKeE
To you all: I love you. Desperately. You're witty, smart, delightful, and lovely. Please don't stop commenting. Ever.
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