Well that came back to haunt me

As the saga of my brother’s situation continued, I found myself consoling another brother who found it exhausting to have him live with him by saying, “I would get tired of having someone in my house, even if it were my own kids!”

Dumb ass thing to say.

About 10 days ago, my middle son slipped and fell in his basement apartment late on a Thursday night and shattered (hospital’s words) his right tibia and fibula near the ankle. It was indeed a horrific break and his phone was not nearby so he had to wait until morning to holler and catch the attention of his friend upstairs who he rents him the apartment. After some discussion about how to get him to the hospital, they realized the only way was by ambulance (good choice). I got a call and met him at the emergency room.  It’s a mother’s nightmare to see her grown child in such pain with very little to do except hold and try to calm him. 

Surgery was done to stabilize the leg to allow time for the swelling to go down.  An “x-fix” was applied which is a scaffolding of rods on the outer leg attached strategically to the bone.  Also painful but meds were available. The rods were in place for a week before the repair surgery was done with plates and screws to reassemble and brace his broken tibia. The fibula was realigned but not plated because the tibia anchors it. 

My son is unmarried, no kids, so his siblings and parents are the caregivers. My two other kids stepped up and made sure he was comfortable in the hospital, had plenty of spirit-lifting visits, and even brought things to occupy him while he mends. Yesterday he was moved to a rehabilitation hospital for inpatient rehab which is truly a blessing. There was speculation among his therapists that his insurance wouldn’t cover it because he is “highly functional” but he is a very large guy and our house, his recovery place, is not considered accessible for someone who cannot put weight on one foot. In rehab he will learn better to maneuver and pivot on his single working leg using a walker, and then he will be able to stay with us for the remaining part of the 6-week recovery. 

Staying with us means he will settle in our living room on a pull-out sofa bed and use the nearby bathroom (mine) where we will install a bath chair and toilet seat riser. I will switch to using the upstairs bathroom (R’s) where we will have to learn to share space again. I can handle that.

The hardest adjustment will be I won’t be able to go downstairs early in the morning and type and read in my living room (where I am now). I’m an inveterate early riser and I like quiet mornings on my first floor before R gets up. 

So yeah, that was a dumb ass thing to say.

But there is a massive silver lining to this story which will have to wait for another day, and in the meantime we’ll do our best to help him heal.