She will turn 97 here in January but last Sunday morning we stopped before going to Church only to find her laying on the kitchen floor. Here she broke her leg in two places. So our local hospital said they didn't put cast on anymore and we would have to take her to this Ohio Institute of Orthopeadics in Lima Ohio. So they wrapped it up with a heavy cloth and sent her home. Every time you tried to move her she would scream like heck. By Monday moring the girls knew they couldn't handle her getting her to the restroom ect. All this time there calling Lima but they must be closed for the holiday. So Christmas eve they put her in the nursing home till they could get the cast on. The day after Christmas we had the snow storm and the nurse out at the nursing home says we need to get the cast on ASAP because of blood clots. So they called our local hospital and they then said they would put the cast on, so my wife makes the arrangement for the ambulance to take her out there at ten. So they get out there and her mother dosen't show up so she asked what was going on . They tell her they canceled the appointment and she had to take her to Lima. So back to the nursing home made arrangments to go to Lima it's almost a total white out and they head for Lima. They put the cast on at this hospital up there and hold her till morning because the roads are so bad. She goes back up to get her and they tell her the doctor has to release her this is eight in the morning. She finally gets dismissed at eight that evening and they bring her back down here. She was in a room by herself that cost hundred dollars a day, now she is in a room with another lady and they both pay two hundred a day that figures out at twelve thousand a month for the room. My wifes been a angel though all of this but I would of been in the woodshed long time ago :D. I get wound up evey time I start thinking about it :-X.
It is so sad when our elders break bones. There is generally so little to knit back to.
My prayers are with her and your family during this time.
last week my Grandfather (age 92 and frail) went to the hospital because he had fallen and broken a couple of discs in his back. after being at the hospital for a couple of days, a nurse drops (he might be 85lbs wet) him and puts him in a lot more pain. The hospital blamed it on him and says that that sometimes happens. In other words, I understand a little bit about your frustation.
Bill, this is awful. It's a shame Older people have to go through stuff like this and we'll know what it's like one day, if we live long enough.
You're lucky to be blessed with a good wife to keep you out of the Woodshed. :)
My thoughts and prayers are with your family.
David
Bill I feel for you and your family. This kind of thing is all too common among elderly women in particular. They fell and broke a hip or leg is the usual explanation, but in most cases they fall because the bones break first. Elderly women are highly susceptible to a condition called osteoporosis where the bones become frail and brittle from a lack of calcium. DocB can probably explain far better than me. Get one of them medical alert pendants, I'm in the process of getting one for my wife...
As bad and as common as this story is, I still would like more detail. Has she seen an orthopedic surgeon through all of this? What exactly is fractured?
These events are tough on healthy, younger patients. The elderly can not fend for themselves and require tons of care. It's episodes like this that are often, to my great regret, one of the happenings that decreases an older person's function for the rest of their lives. In my mother's case, it was a foot fracture. The ability to heal is there, but the ability to rehabilitate toward independent living after the injury is greatly impaired. Best of luck to her and your family.
sorry to hear this news as well, my father, 86, broke his hip in march of this year, and as doc has said, it is a real set back, our prayers are with your family, david
So sad to hear about our ailing elders!
It's a shame, but for a lot of them, it's a normal thing!
An example, my mom (83) has 2 fractured vertebrae and finds it very difficult to move around through the day or to sleep at night.
She finds most comfort in her recliner.
Sorry about your wife's mother Autocar. Someone once said, "tough things don't last, tough people do"..wrong! Our mother had Alzheimer's, she stood up in bed one night and stepped off breaking her hip. We put her in hospital, they put her in "sklill care" unit." She was cared for at home ten times better, no one there to give her water in the care unit; we hired a private caretaker, but mother soon passed, she didn't have a chance, I know now, but I've coined the 'care' unit as "kill-care" . :-X
Soon after, my oldest brother had advanced Parkinson's disease. His family put him in the nursing home..... What a cruel thing to do, and as a brother I know his family could have provided a better option at his home, very sad. Too sad to tell, really.
A follow up on the medical alert pendants.. Most folks shy away from them because of cost. Normally you pay an up front cost and then a monthly fee. When activated, the unit connects to your phone line and dials an 800 number to connect to a dispatcher, on duty 24/7. What happens next varies depending on the service..may call a neighbor, may call 911, etc.
There's another way. There are units available that do not use a dispatcher, therefore no monthly fee. Program anywhere from 4 to 30 phone numbers in the box, which calls those numbers in sequence until one of them answers, then plays back a pre-recorded message, ie "this is mom, I need some help". Most of these units have a speaker phone built in, allowing the answering party to talk and listen.
If you have elderly relatives who live alone or are left alone, one of these units is like a gift from Heaven. Hardest part is convincing grandma to use it.
Cheap $100 - $300..
My brother Steve got the alert call for dad, and lo and behold he fell going to bed, this was about two weeks ago, no call, no shout out, he just wallered around til he could get up. He lives in SC, 800 miles from me, Steve is only 10 min away, I called dad the next day and he told me what happened, then Steve heard, this is one of those tough situations, he is o..k it just wears everyone out, mom passed in 09' so he is alone, I really feel for all the folks with similar situations, it really is a helpless feeling. david
Sorry to hear about your MIL Autocar.When my parents were both alive and in reasonable health for their late 60s and 70s my mother was part of a volunteer initiative called "phone a friend". Each day she phoned a particular older member of the community to chat with him and make sure everything was ok. He lived alone and this was a way to make sure he had outside contact and would not be waiting for help too long in the case of an accident or illness. This was before the alert buttons and would still work well with people who can't be talked into the alert button.
Pineywoods, the alert unit is a great idea and not a one time loss either. We are all getting older and as one person finishes with a unit it could probably go to another family member right away.
Before my dad died I got him one of those medical alerts that hung around his neck. On Fridays they would call him testing it but the problem he was hard hearing and couldn't hear it so he would let in lay on the end table I would go over when they tested it around four in the afternoon. But then there was another problem I couldn't understand the fellow that was calling, I wondered many times if the call wasn't coming in from India. Once I was logging a job way north of our place and dad had went to the mail box and fell on the ice and broke his hip. When I got home that evening I called him and he told me he had fallen and drug himself back to the house, I asked him why he didn't call me sooner [ I didn't want you to lose any time working ] ;D So I take him to our local hospital and he was there not sure how many days but while he was there he started talking about going to the back fofthy and gathering eggs ect. I tell the nurses that they had better keep a eye on him because he would try to get out of bed they said we have the bed alarm and not to worry. Only problem someone didn't turn it on I wasn't home twenty minuites and they called me saying he broke the other hip. I wasn't happy at all but keep my cool he lasted about tweo weeks and died at 92. And as far as my mother in law seeing a surgeon Iam not sure, she has a cast now and in a few weeks has to go back to see how it is healing. The lady in the room with her has been there a week and a half and told me yesturday that they set her on the pot once and gave her a wash rag know soap and told her to give herself a bath, see even asked for soap. But at six grand a month I suppose the soaps extra :-\ I better be careful or I'll end up in the woodshed again :D.