I'm On a Ride (and I Wanna Get Off)...
Hi, readers
Apologies for a longer silence than anticipated.
The past couple of weeks have been unexpectedly challenging.
Nearly two weeks ago, my 89-year-old dad took a fall while out on an errand on his rollator style walker. Let’s please ignore the frustrating details about the whys and whens, but the important part of the story is he lost his balance, fell, and broke his shoulder.
After the initial diagnosis following an x-ray of “Yep, it’s broken. No biggie, just keep a sling on and don’t get jostled too much” from urgent care, further examination at an orthopedic clinic the next day revealed a compound fracture that required full shoulder bone replacement.
That procedure took place this week, but reaching that finish line for a few more days was… not good.
Surgery was a success, however the aftermath has been a LOT more involved than forecasted by my dad’s medical team, who had classified the surgery as “outpatient”.
That’s cute.
My dad is still in the hospital. I am an only child and though romantically attached to someone, he does not live in the city. The team at NYU Langone has been incredibly helpful assisting me with all the various acoutrements that make my dad’s recovery possible, including new terrain of home health care.
Unfortunately though my 88-year-old mother has mobility issues but is otherwise healthy, she is unable to physically assist my dad with his needs or negotiate any of the bureaucracy and scheduling herself. Though I am able to take care of all the various orchestrations (Dad would like that word. He’s so into classical music that he volunteers at the NY Philharmonic Digital Archives as an expert historical consultant) myself, she is obviously quite anxious about the situation. At times that anxiety can get rather infectious. I am doing my best not to lose it.
This can be difficult when conversations seemingly take passage on a merry-go-round of potentially worrying scenarios, and I admittedly need to manage my reaction to those moments a bit better. To quote Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran from “The Reflex”:
“I’m on a ride
and I wanna get off
But they won’t slow down the roundabout”
(Thankfully I’m not experiencing a psychotic reaction that would prompt me to steal a “Renoir and a TV set”.)
(At least not yet.)
Anyway, it’s been rough. I have dealt with what my guy has classified as “ambient stress” for a long time now, stress that’s always playing at full volume. Now that it’s turned all the way up and constantly on for now, I’m realizing something:
In anticipating all the various scenarios about how this could go, I have not been nearly as imaginative as I could have been. (For instance, my family now has new code for “mazel tov”. We’ll leave it at that.)
Thanks to everyone who has already reached out with their well wishes, etc.
Thanks to everyone who continues to support me here. It is needed more than ever.
Hopefully back to more entertaining content soon.
Cheers!
A