The Continuing Saga of Fran and Gary

Well, folks, I had not meant to write about this (thinking that it would go away and it didn't), but here it is.

Last Sunday, my father called and said, "Lisa, I need your help. Now." and then hung up. So I rushed over and found that Mama had fallen - twice. One time she had completely blacked out and the other time she had just gotten dizzy. So I stayed over there until she started feeling better and talked to Daddy about what the problem could be. Luckily, nothing was broken.

They went to the doctor on Monday, where everything appeared to be okay, but the doctor scheduled a CT scan of Mama's head on Tuesday. (Monday was Daddy's birthday - 67 years old.)

But they never made it to the appointment.

Because on Tuesday around 1:30 or 2:00, Mama fell again. While she was home ALONE. COOKING.

Luckily Daddy got home in time to get the pot off of the stove and call the rescue squad. That's when I got the call at school from Brent - Daddy had called him, I guess, because it was the easiest number to remember. So I called Mary and the whole "spend the night in the emergency room/hospital" story began.

First of all, the ride to the hospital made Mama sick. She can't ride lying down. And the AC on the rescue squad was out, so Mama threw up when she got to the emergency room. Luckily our cousin Tobby was one of the EMT's, so Mama and Daddy felt a little better about that whole situation.

Once she got in the emergency room, they checked everything and sent her to Xray to get her head CT she had been scheduled for, an xray of her chest and an xray of her hip. (And I WILL say at this point that everyone in the emergency room was VERY nice AND helpful.)

Did I forget to mention that she was having pain in her hip?

Well, the xray came back negative for anything in the hip, but she was having too much pain, so the emergency room doc's ordered a CT of her hip as well. And this is the point where I stop to say . . .

Unless I am bleeding profusely or dying, do not stop me off at Beaufort County Hospital.

There is no one at BCH that can read CT scans. They have to send them to Greenville to be read. The next day. Is this such a hard thing to do? What kind of training is involved? Are we, as a nation, suffering from a shortage of CT scan readers? Maybe Brent needs to go to school for that.

Okay, so they put her in a room, around eight o'clock, where she asked for something to eat - I mean she asked Daddy, and he told me to go find out, where - hold on a sec - another departure from the story -

Why can't it be a requirement that ALL nurses be nice. Why do people continue to nurse when they are no longer PEOPLE persons? Go do something else lady . . .

Anyway - Mary and I left around 8. Mama made it through the night. The next day, the magic man CT reader in Greenville called to let somebody know that Mama had cracked her hip. Dr. Miller - who will probably complete the trifecta for SHITTINESS happening at BCH - will be doing surgery this afternoon to put a plate on her hip.

So I am off today. Going to take a shower, go to Dollar Tree to buy my broke-assed Mama some Sudoku books, and then I'm at the hospital for the rest of the day - I guess.

Wish me luck.