My mom took a fall on Friday. She’s okay.
She fell in front of Shopper’s Drug Market (Canadian version of CVS). Two people picked her up and one of them took her into the drugstore. The pharmacist was able to mostly stop the bleeding and bandage her scraped nose, but my mom was shaken up and her lip was swollen. She might have been in shock as well. The woman who picked her up off the ice said that she would drive her to the nearby Urgent Care Clinic. My mom said she had to go to the bank first.
The kind stranger followed my mom to the bank, thinking that she should really go to Emergency. She waited with my mom in the bank and then said, "OK, let’s go to the clinic." My mom said she had an appointment to get her nails done. She headed over to the nearby nail salon where her manicurist looked at her bandaged face and bruised lip and said, "OH MY GOD," and phoned my mother's helper, Janine, who comes on Friday to clean.
Janine phones me at 10:00 a.m. yelling: "YOU’VE GOT TO TAKE YOUR MOTHER TO EMERGENCY. SHE FELL!!"
I said, “Where is she?”
Janine: “She’s at her manicure.”
I said, “Janine, I'm asleep, I'm a 10-minute drive away, and I have to scrape the snow off the car. You are around the corner! You have her car. (My mother gave Janine her car.) Go to the manicurist and take her to emergency. I’ll meet you there."
Janine, “I’d better phone the manicurist back and tell her I’m coming.”
Janine phoned me back a few minutes later and said, “I’m taking your mom to emergency, but she says she has to wait for her nails to dry.”
I said, "#$% Look, - either she has to go to emergency or she has to wait for her nails to dry. You can't have it both ways!!"
By the time I arrived in the neighbourhood, my mom was ready to go to emergency and I spent the next several hours with her getting her checked out and cleaned up.
When we got past triage and into the nursing area, the nurse who was taking her vitals saw that the chart said she was 91. The nurse said, “What’s your secret for long life?”
Without missing a beat, my mom said through her swollen lip:
“Love others, let yourself be loved, and help people.”She's so cute.
Priorities! If everyone only had their priorities as clear as your mom, this world would be a lot calmer and happier place.
How come you're still not promoted? Here, I'll do the honors. If you're lil's significant other, you're overqualified to be a welcome member to Hubski.
Some of hubski might recall this story, squarely placing him in my close orbit (even though, at the moment, he lives 4500 km away) (shorter if you take US highways)If you're lil's significant other
ahem, yes, that's the guy. He probably doesn't even know what "promoted" means in hubski-speak. Please explain.
Apologies if I spoiled it. I thought it was no secret because I figured it out from your posts. mivasairski, being promoted on Hubski means that you're now allowed to post stuff on Hubski. Personal anecdotes, stories from WaPo that you thought was insightful or funny, videos of cute cats... Feel free to share your ideas and stories with people on here: you make for an interesting character so far.
I was expecting this to go in a much different direction than it did; I'm happy it turned out, well, happy. My maternal grandmother died (back in the 70s) after slipping on ice. My mom's nearly 80 and slipped just a couple of weeks ago, but thankfully only banged up her head and hip a bit, but didn't break anything. I would imagine she had a moment where she thought "this is how I go."
Because it went the way it did, I thought it might be a story. Thanks for reading. I hope your mom's okay. Even being super careful doesn't help. Ice is often invisible and brutal. The emergency room doctor said they were seeing a lot of broken wrists. While sliding across the ice on your nose is no party, my mom was glad she didn't break any bones or her glasses. You'd think at 91, your bones might be easily broken. That's why everyone wanted to get her to the clinic.I was expecting this to go in a much different direction than it did;
I slipped last year and wrote this while waiting in emergency: