So . . . the past 48 hours have been some of the most eventful (and not necessarily the good kind of eventful) hours of my life. Where do I start?
Monday morning, I was sitting at work in my usual Monday slump when my mom called at about 10 a.m. I always have a bit of a sinking feeling when she calls me at work because she never just calls to chat. Plus, I knew my grandmother was going in for surgery that morning, and I worried that maybe something had gone wrong. It wasn't supposed to be a massive, massive surgery or anything, but the woman is in her later seventies.
I answered the phone, and I could tell Mom was struggling. I let her speak. She told me that Grandma's doing okay with her surgery and everything, but she also wanted to let me know that she was at a hospital in Lafayette for my dad the night prior. I was stunned for a second, and then I, of course, asked the usual, "What!? What happened!?"
It turns out that my dad was working on knocking down the old farm house that's still on my parents' farm. We've not lived in there since I was an infant, and since then, it's been taken over by raccoons, mice, and other critters. Plus, it was already seriously deteriorating by the time we had moved out. We moved out of it because they found it unfit for housing an infant.
Anyway . . . Dad was using a big tractor with a big metal bucket on it to knock down parts of the house, when he saw something on the second floor that he had been trying to find for several years: a box that contained the last two remaining items that he owned that belonged to his father. So, he got off the tractor, climbed up to the second floor of the house (partially knocked down, but still seemed stable for him to stand on the edges), and he tried to get that box. Before he had time to even try to reach for it, the roof that was hanging like an awning over the rest of the rubbled house started to creak and shake. The whole house started to crackle and creak, and then it all started to shift. Without even a thought, Dad had run and jumped off the side of the house (from the second floor, remember) and was falling. As he fell, he looked down and saw that there was a plank on the ground that had a rusty nail sticking up out of it. So, in mid-fall, he shifted his leg, and when he landed, he broke both his right arm and his left leg—clean breaks.
After he landed, he tried to pull himself up (and I believe he saw his leg move in a direction it shouldn't move at this time) onto the tractor. I think it took a couple of tries, but he got up onto the tractor and managed to drive it around the old farm house, back to the driveway, and back over to the house they live in now. Once he got there, he basically kind-of flopped off the tractor and was laying in the grass trying to drag himself toward the house with his one good leg. During all of this, Mom had left for a little while to take a graduation card over to a graduate in Remington, and she returned to find Dad laying in the grass. He says he wasn't there long. Can you imagine how freaked out she was—seeing him laying there in the grass!? I can't even imagine it. I don't really want to . . .
Anyway . . . somehow they got him into a car, and she drove him to the hospital in Lafayette (I actually don't know which hospital it was). They put some soft casts on him because they had determined that they would have to do surgeries on both his arm and his leg to get them set properly.
As soon as I got the news from Mom, I ditched Willis at work and drove to Wolcott. Unfortunately for me, it's apparently monsoon season over there (and all over the land that leads to there from here). So, the drive was a wee bit more stressful than it already originally should have been. I got to the house, and Dad was sitting there on the reclining couch with his leg propped up. As I stood there, it occurred to me that I had never seen my dad injured. He's never broken a bone in his whole life. He's never been hospitalized for any reason. He's never had any problems with his health. It was pretty bizarre to see him sitting there so . . . helpless. While I was there, I saw him try to struggle down the hall to get to the bathroom once, and he had been using a scary concoction of a crutch (not really possible for him to use properly) that he had to squeeze in his broken arm's armpit and an office chair. That was pretty scary . . . any slight bumps to his arm or leg would send him into a fit, too, so it was too scary to even help him (because I was afraid of making it worse or making him lose his balance).
After watching him do this a couple of times, Mom and I went to Lafayette to go pick up his wheelchair and a walker that he could use (being that his right arm is broken and that his left leg is broken, this proved to be a lot more difficult a challenge than we thought). We got to the place (after having to search for awhile since the doctor gave us faulty directions), and I immediately remembered noting, "Gee . . . it's kind-of weird that they don't have anything on display or have a catalog available or anything."
We told them what was wrong with my dad (plus, there was information from the doctor about Dad), and they brought stuff out to us. It seemed easy enough, but . . . Dad wasn't there to check it out. Plus, it's hard to get a wheelchair for someone who has massive limitations on mobility when you're a perfectly healthy person. So, we got a wheelchair and a walker (with a "special attachment" for his arm), and we left. As we left Lafayette, Mom wanted to go check on her mom in Monticello at the hospital, so I drove over there (stopping first at Sams to try to get ice packs that the doctor told us we could find there for Dad, but . . . Sams didn't stock anything like that).
We saw Grandma for a little while, and then she started to fall asleep. So, we took off right then to get back to Dad (who I was feeling pretty guilty about leaving alone at the house in his condition), and when we brought the stuff in that we got him, we discovered that none of it worked. The walker attachment wasn't really in the proper place for where he needed it. The walker itself had swivel wheels, and when you have a broken arm and a broken leg, swivel wheels are your enemy. The wheelchair was too short (and we had told the people his height and weight). The walker was too tall. It was ridiculous.
We were worried (after seeing how hard Dad was having to work to get down the hallway to the bathroom each time) that his swelling wouldn't go down in his leg (thus, he wouldn't be able to have surgery on Wednesday).
I ended up staying the night at Mom and Dad's Monday night (I was too exhausted to drive back to La Porte after that long day of running all over the place), and I woke up at 5 a.m. Central Time (sidenote: my parents live in the mystery land of confused time zones, and my cell phone kept changing times on me . . . so that freaked me out in the morning). I got up, ate some cereal, chatted with Dad for a bit (I woke him up with my alarm—which I felt bad about), and hit the road. I was actually going to make it to work on time (even with stopping in La Porte, showering, and getting back over to Portage). Then, I got clear to Winamac when I realized I didn't have my glasses on and that they were still sitting on the night stand at my parents. I actually had to turn around at my old, crappy job at BNK. That was weird. I was so mad . . . I lost about an hour and a half of time because of that. So, I ended up being late to work. The rest of my day was all weird as a result.
Anyway . . . today, Daddy was supposed to have surgery on both his leg and his arm. I talked to Jerm this morning briefly, and he told me that they had to take Dad to two places this morning: one to look at his arm and leg, and one to actually do the surgery. The doctor said that his leg was too swollen for surgery, and he'll have to wait six days before he can have surgery on it. They still planned to do his arm today, though. He also suggested that Mom and Jeremy go get Dad a foam wedge from Wells Yeager Best to help Dad prop up his leg. Before Jeremy could even finish his sentence, I knew he was going to tell me they couldn't get it: the lady from the wheelchair shop was talking to someone on the phone while we were there and mentioned that Wells Yeager Best was going out of business this week and would be closing its doors on Thursday. Strike three, man. Strike three.
(BTW, when I hung up the phone with Jerm, I realized that my whole department was in a meeting. So, in a scramble to get a notebook and grab my smoothie, I dumped my smoothie over. It was awesome. I cleaned up most of it and ran to the meeting, and when the meeting was over, I came back to a crusty desk.)
Plus, the wheelchair place doesn't have anything in stock that Dad can use . . . at all. They could order him something, but it would take five days. How is that not completely absurd? They're a MEDICAL SUPPLY COMPANY. Where's the supply? More like MEDICAL PRACTICAL JOKE COMPANY. My dad's not an unaverage size, either (unlike me). Totally stupid.
As of right now: my dad is out of surgery (just for the arm). So . . . hopefully that will help him a bit in his plight. I just wish they could give him a freaking wheelchair from the hospital or something. I bet he's having such a hard time keeping that swelling down in his leg because he keeps having to come up with creative ways to get around, thus moving it too much. *sigh* Poor Dad.
What's worse: he said that if he would've just stayed standing on the floor in the old farm house, he'd have been just fine. Isn't that how it goes, though?
Anyway . . . that basically sums it up . . .
Well . . . that, and we had a puppy pit bull running loose that apparently belongs to the new renting neighbors we suddenly have. When I came home Tuesday morning, I saw this pit bull puppy with a giant broom in its mouth. I'm willing to bet it didn't belong to the owners. I hope they don't make him mean . . . I really don't want to have a baby next to a mean pit bull . . .
I guess I have more cheerful stories, too . . . I wasn't even going to post them because I wasn't in the mood, but I'll do it to try to cheer it up a bit in here. On Saturday, I watched my cat spot a common house fly, chase after it, slap it, and eat it all within a minute of the first sighting. It was pretty amazing. It's funny, too, 'cause I was thinking of buying a fly swatter recently. I guess I don't really need one . . .
Also, Hobbes has been really weird with chews lately. Not only has he begun hiding them in the couch (and saving them for later only to discover that he can't get them back out, so he cries), but the other day, I accidentally left the closet door open that has the chews in there. So, Hobbes walked in there and helped himself to a chew. It's interesting to me, though: he only grabbed one. He only wanted one when there was a whole bag full. Funny dog.
As of tomorrow, our bean will officially be a fetus at 10 weeks.
That's really all . . . |
