Sunday, June 5, 2016

Throwing a wrench in the plan

Memorial Day was planned out.  Big swim, as in 8k swim at Encinitas Y and a day of relaxing with John and dinner with my Dad and K.  We woke up early, nothing unusual there, and John commented "thank goodness your mom is home safely from Europe"  She just returned from a 3 week adventure, cruise, cobblestones, spiral staircases etc and was home safe and sound. 

I picked up my phone and saw 3 missed calls, 2 VM and that feeling of dread came over me.  Flew out of bed, listening to messages that mom was at Scripps, had fallen and broken her femur.

Optimistically I put on my suit and headed over at 5:30am planning on a visit until 8 and heading to swim etc.... Only to realize it was a major fracture, surgery pending, serious pain and this was not a quick event.   11 hours later she was finally taken into surgery for what was to be 2-3 hours.  41/2 hours later, thankfully I was home, the surgeon called and says "what a doozie"  Seems the bone was literally in 3 pieces and required 2 x 10inch plates with accompanying hardware, no weight bearing for 6 weeks and a tough surgery.  I opted to stay home as she often takes a long time in recovery.  And yes it was nearly 11 before she was in her room due to some complications.   Once she was out, I was so relieved I cracked a bottle of wine and had a glass, mind you the pour was probably 12oz, but it was a glass and tried to get some sleep.

Fitful sleep, worried about my mom, I called in at midnight to make sure she was okay and was up at 4 and  wanted to get in my trainer workout before going to the hospital.  Let's just say my watts were low but it felt good to sweat.  So began my routine for the week, early early AM training and then off to the hospital.  Someone post op in pain, on morphine needs an advocate. It seemed every time I left something happened, no meds, no this no that....so one really has to just camp out. The Dr's window of coming by is worse than SDGE they say 11-1 and sometimes it is 7:30 or 4pm and since i wanted to be there, well I had to be there.  Thankfully my mom's dear friend was able to spell me and help out  tremendously but hospital stays can be a full time job.   Luckily I have a mobile office.
83 and 99!  Impressive

I will spare you the day by day but finally on Thursday we got her transferred to Skilled Nursing, but even that had about 10 hiccups before it was sorted out. Meanwhile I had spend the day with my Dad and my Aunt who turned 99- holy cow!  Please let me have the Hancock genes.  WOW.  It was great to see her and my cousin. \

 I came home feeling great to 77 emails and complete upheaval with my mom. Finally got her settled and tackled work only to realize around 10pm I converted the Yen to Singapore $, the Singapore $ to Yen and the Denmark whatever currency to Yen vs all of the respective currencies to $$. So much for my master in Excel.  At this point I knocked back the "other glass" or bottle of wine, ate an entire XOXO Chocolate bar and chips and avocado.   Fuel of a Champion! 

Can I tell you how great I felt the next day in the pool.....pay the piper!   Ugh....it was ugly and I had no choice as I had not been in the pool all week. So I sucked it up and swam 5800 yards.
Cousin Eric, Dad and Me

Friday was ugly, averaging 5 hours of sleep a night for most of the week, the caffeine no longer working I had resorted to Vivarin. I crashed hard and slept 2 hours in the afternoon and with mom moved began prepping for the weekend.  

And well.... surprisingly I had a great ride on Saturday and even better run off the bike and nailed my run today!  Feeling like I am on track for Ironman.  Maybe things went so well this weekend because my brain did not have time to think about it? who knows....I just went with what I had.  I will say, other than the 2 winechocolate binges, the rest of the week I did stay on clean eating, hydrated well and I think that paid off! 

All in all.... successful week.  Mom is settled and thank goodness she is close.  I popped in during my transition run yesterday for water and See's candy and finished my run.  And it's easy to see her frequently as she is a few miles away. This evening I snuck in a bottle of wine and we had Happy Hour!  She has a long road ahead but she is headed in the right direction and has the right attitude!   I'm thankful she is okay.... 


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