What Will Happen Next?

The day didn’t turn out exactly as I thought it would. We came to Little Rock because a relative was going into the hospital to have test done. Fmom and I wake up and eat, I get ready and while Fmom is getting ready, she falls coming out of the bathroom. I jump up and run over to her and she’s flat on her face. I’m asking her if she’s hurt, is she OK, what can I do? She tried to get up but she can’t use her right arm or shoulder. I get under her left arm and get her into a sitting position. She tries to move and she has extreme pain in her right shoulder. She tells me she thinks she broke her arm. I tell her I’m calling an ambulance and she’s adamantly saying no. So I try to help get her up and she can’t. She finally agrees to let me call, but first she wants me to go down to by relative’s room and let them know. She doesn’t want them to come out into the hallway and see a stretcher at our room. I run down and let them know and run back to the room. I call the front desk and they call the ambulance.

The ambulance gets here, the relatives are bouncing off the walls and I’m trying to tell the EMT guys what happened and give them the information they want. Fmom is in a lot of pain and it takes them awhile to get her on the stretcher. Her face had hit the carpet and her nose and forehead are bleeding, but the EMT guys get that under control. They get her to the ambulance and one of my relatives’ rides with her while I follow in the car. I tell my relative at the motel not to call any of the family until I know what is going on. That was like speaking to a brick wall. Before I got to the hospital the cell phone was ringing.

I get into the ER and my relative is already there and she’s trying to fill out papers. I get the papers and I have all of Fmom’s info and do that. I go back to the ER where Fmom is and sit with her until the doctor comes in. He checks her out and says they’ll get X-rays and he will get her something for pain. They take Fmom to X-ray I have to run back to the car because I left her medicines in there and they want to know what she’s taking. I get back and wait and wait and wait. They finally bring her back and I ask her how she is feeling. She said she’s still in pain. The doctor comes back in and tells us she had fractured the ball that goes into the socket on her left shoulder. He said there was nothing they could really do except to immobilize her shoulder and give her something for pain. He told us that she needs to see an orthopedist when she gets home. So during all this time, I’m running (yes walking) back and forth to the car to get her medicines for the nurse, get the clothes I bought because she was in her robe and to get the car to bring it to pick her up. I’m also checking to see how the relative is that we came up to be with during his test. Plus I’m fielding phone calls from brothers and sister.

They wheel her out to the car and I drive us back to the motel. After the pain medicine they gave her, I don’t know how, but she made it to our room. I get her settled with a load of pillows behind her and she is sleeping.

So here I sit until she needs something. I hoping she will feel up to a six-hour drive back home tomorrow. If she doesn’t, we’ll be here another day.