Yesterday mom had surgery on her broken ankle. They had to open it up and put 3 screws in to hold it in place. She can't put any weight on it for 6-8 weeks so it has been quite the ordeal to get her anywhere, even in the house. Because of the risk of blood clots and the fact that she would need assistance with absolutely everything, she has had to cancel her cruise. Many tears have been spilt over that and I feel more than sad for her right now. She is staying with me for the next several days until Mike and Becky return from their trip. This is not going to be any easy go for her and she will need lots of help in the upcoming weeks.

I really like this blog thing, but my goal was to have more happy news to put on it. My last post was a bit of a downer and now I get to share more bad news with my family.

My mom was starting to get on top of things after fracturing her pelvis when she fell in January. We were all feeling encouraged and thought she was going to get back to normal when she fell in the grocery store yesterday and broke her ankle. Apparently there was a spill (oil or something) at the entrance of the store and mom got to be the first to bring it to someone's attention. She fell flat on her back and cracked her head hard on the floor. The amazing thing is that the store clerk helped her up and helped her out to her car instead of calling an ambulance. Are people just stupid or what? She drove home and called my brother Mike. He took her to the emergency room where they did an x-ray on her foot and determined the outside of her ankle was sprained and the inside was broken. They didn't check her head too closely though, and I'm a little concerned about that.

I'm feeling so badly for her right now because these things are really taking a toll on her overall health. She's 81 and not healing as fast as she used to. She is going to an orthopedic doctor today to see whether or not they will pin it, cast it or boot it. If it is still too swollen they won't do anything until the swelling goes down. The good news is come hell or high water she is still going to go on her cruise. It might mean a wheelchair, but that could be a good thing. She will be first in line for everything!

Life's not so uneventful afterall!

Just when I thought that I didn't have anything to talk about on my blog, my mother has a fire in her house. When she got hurt in January, I spent several Saturdays helping her clean her house. When I got to her laundry room, I told her that she really needed to let me help her get rid of things. She said, "someday we'll do that, but not today." Knowing that she didn't feel up to it, I let it rest.

She called me on Monday and said, "you were right! I have way too much junk that I'm hanging on to and I'm going to get rid of it. I had a fire in my laundry room." Wow! Is that a prompting we ignored or what? Luckily, she smelled the smoke before it took her house down and she knew right where her fire extinguisher was. My mom is still a strong and smart lady and didn't fall apart when she saw the flames rising. I'm proud of her.

The fire department came and told her the fire was caused by spontaneous combustion. She had a dust rag that had oils in it in her cleaning caddy and a plastic bag had fallen on top of it. It generated enough heat that it started on fire. I guess that's a big lesson for all of us. Use the swiffer cloths and throw them out when we finish dusting.

We are grateful that it didn't happen when she was sleeping or when she was away from her home.