I can’t wait for life to be boring. I don’t mean truly dull and boring. Rather, I long for a routine and just a bit of time without big, stressful events. I want to get to the point where, for most days outside of work, my biggest decisions involve what to eat for dinner or if I can convince myself to workout. I long for it, especially because I am so tired, anxious, and worn out right now.
Two Thursdays ago my grandma fell and shattered the upper part of her femur. My aunt Yvonne called to tell me that Grandma was sitting on the floor in her bedroom (we have 2 cameras in her house, one in the kitchen and one in her bedroom. Maybe sounds kind of weird, but it allows family to check in on her from afar without disturbing her or without making a trip) and asked if I could check in on her. We live in a duplex with Grandma on the first level and the rest of us in the upper unit, so it was just a matter of going downstairs. Brought my dad downstairs with in case it was something minor and we had to lift her or something. Being 93 and having some elderly-person confusion, she couldn’t tell us what happened. Finally got out of her that she couldn’t really move her right leg and that it hurt, but then a few minutes later she’d say she was perfectly fine and that she wanted us to go away. Got Aaron downstairs to help because he spends a lot of time caring for his Grandpa and is better at getting information out of a confused mind than I am. Called my mom at work to tell her what was going on, she called Yvonne and told her to come over so she could ride with Grandma in the ambulance to the hospital where my mom works.
Long story short, they got her to the ER without incident, took some rads and saw that she had a really bad fracture.
She had surgery to repair it the following day but, because she has old bones and the nature of the repair, there were some complications and other parts of the feumr were fractured and, as a result, needed to be repaired during the surgery. I visited that night and mom and I were there when she came back from surgery. She was extra confused, to the point of trying to hit us and the nurses. Can’t blame her. She was scared, confused, and in pain. She didn’t do terribly well over the weekend. I visited again all day last Sunday and she was barely conscious and extremely agitated. She couldn’t communicate what was bothering her and that frustrated her. Miraculously, the following day or maybe the day after her mental state turned around considerably and she was alert and conversational. Then she developed a cough and it’s made her very hoarse and, even though she wants to talk, she can’t really without coughing.
I spent Friday night at the hospital and was amazed by how much better she was doing since my Sunday visit. Her prognosis is still guarded but she doesn’t seem painful and is at her normal level of mentation despite the doctor thinking it could take her weeks to months to reach the point. It is likely that she will never be able to walk again, because of the severity of the break, if she makes it through this point.
I’m worried about my mom. She’s been there every day, and was luckily able to get a family leave of absence from work, for hours. I’m afraid she’ll overextend herself. And, if things don’t go well, I’m worried about the emotion toll it will take on her.
I’ve been doing my General Practice rotation and I’m really thankful that this happened during this rotation rather than a more intense one. It allows me to be a little more helpful than I’d be were I in a worse rotation. Aaron has been amazing and working so hard to keep us all going. I don’t know what we’d do without him.
I have another CT scan and oncology appointment this week. For whatever reason, I thought they were 3 weeks away instead of this week, so it came as a bit of a surprise. I usually like to give the clinicians in charge of a rotation a heads-up that I’ll need to miss some time. Oops. Plus I now need to cram 3 weeks of anxiety and panic into a few days. Unfortunately, my mind is up to the task.
I’m really enjoying this rotation, though. It’s like what real life will be like when I have a job. It makes me feel like I can actually do this job. I am quite annoyed with one of my rotation-mates, though. She is freaking out and becoming overwhelmed over some pretty minor things. I don’t know what else is going on in her life, so who knows, maybe she has some other stressful/traumatic things going on. It’s just so frustrating, you know? I’m working really hard at keeping it together with my own shit going on and she’s freaking out because one of her appointments ended up being more complicated than anticipated. Girl, please, put on your big girl panties and deal with it. And no, I do not want to take your appointment later because you will have time for it and that would be unfair as you would only have 1 appointment today and I’d be stuck with 4.
Bleh. Sorry, had to vent. No worries, I was outwardly very kind and supportive of her despite my frustration.
Should go prepare for tomorrow/next week. Might instead stress shop online for a bit.
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