The Day That November Came & Went

The entire month of November is gone and I have very little to show for it. All the blogs I've written in my head somehow didn't make it online, apparently there is no application that lets you upload thoughts generated while trying to fall asleep directly to Blogger. Shame.

But really, my month was better than some people's. Namely, my Mom's, whose month was even more "lost" than mine, spent mostly in a painkiller induced haze under the covers of her queen sized bed.

On November 8th Mom and her husband, Bob, were enjoying the mild weather with a horse ride at my Uncle Rick's in Decorah, about 2 hours north of Cedar Rapids. Mom was riding a 3/4 horse who was later named 'Annie'. Mom was a wee bit complacent while riding gentle Annie and was not holding the reigns as tightly as she should have. Annie decided to go for a little run and Mom bounced right off, landing on her butt.

A trip to the Decorah hospital followed and after x-rays it was determined that Mom has a "compression fracture" in her vertebra. Compression fractures in the spine occur when a person falls onto their butt, compressing the vertebra like a spring. The folks at the Decorah hospital sent Mom up to Rochester Minnesota, to St. Mary's, one of the Mayo Clinic hospitals. It was determined that surgery would be her best option and on Tuesday, Nov. 10th, a team of doctors spent 6 hours inserting 9 titanium screws and a few rods into 5 of her vertebra. They stabilized the one broken vertebra by using the two above it and the two below it for support.

My sister Tracy and I arrived at St. Mary's while Mom was still in surgery. Once she was out the struggle to get her comfortable began, and frankly, it wasn't until a few days ago that it ended.

Moving was painful for her, being touched was painful, her clothes, the bedding her skin, the IVs...it was all either painful or irritating. In addition to the surgery, she would have to wear a brace anytime she was out of bed for the next 3 months. The brace itself is uncomfortable, encircling her torso and tightened with 6 Velcro strips.

When she arrived home on November 15th my sister and I began a cycle of visitation, trying to let Bob get as much sleep as possible since he was the one who was up attending to her needs 24 hours a day. Uncle Rick's wife, Dana, came down to help, giving Bob some much needed rest and also giving Mom a new face to look at.

With each visit I could see Mom getting better and stronger. She required fewer and fewer doses of the pain killers and it got easier and easier to get her up and out of bed. Even the time she spent out of bed has grown, from just a quick trip to the toilet to several hours spent on Thanksgiving night around the dining room table. When I saw her yesterday she was getting up out of be without any assistance, a marvelous feat!

During this whole process, any thought I ever had about joining the ranks of medical field was disintegrated. I have no idea how nurses do it, but they put up with people when they are at their worst and keep coming back, day after day. My patience just is not that strong. I love my Mom but I'd be a liar if I seeing her in a fragile, vulnerable, needful and impossible to please state didn't grind me down emotionally. However, it took only a glance at the 8 inch long incision down her back to remind me what I could have lost that day, and put everything into perspective.

It'll be a few more months before Mom doesn't have to wear her brace, but until then she will resume her weekly bridge games, shopping and even her "snow bird" status will only be delayed a few weeks. In nine months or so I imagine she'll even be back at Uncle Rick's, riding a horse, this time with a white knuckled grip on the reigns.