Starting over!

Okay, I am inspired to start "blogging" again as things are changing with Pearl. Since I have last written, we got her to stay pretty independant and then the dominoes began to fall....literally! So she has fallen twice, been in a hospital, nursing home rehab, and now back home. I will begin with the first fall, which was in December. This woman, who WAS 5 ft 2 in in her prime, is now 4ft 6! We have told her to use the "grabber" to reach things or have her son reach them when he visits. But noooooooooo! She tried to get up on a stepstool that was only 6-8 inches high, lost her balance and fell back onto a dresser that she has in the hall. Her pain was real and earned! The fear was that her osteoporetic bones were fractured so she had to go to be checked out. She had a call in to the "girl" she'd been paying to drive her all over hell and back for 2 years, but her son was on his way over to take her to Immediate Care for xrays. Amazingly, she checked out fine but she ended up with some epic bruising.....only a BIG deal to her! Can't say how many times I heard the complete description-sizes and colors, which changed. Up until now she has been doing her own cleaning, cooking, laundry, everything. She had "Mary" to drive her wherever she wanted to go, even though shopping was a painful, time-consuming, useless waste of effort. IF she even found something to buy, she wanted it returned the next day. No clothing fit her parameters.....they had to hide the horrendous hump on her back, "pooched"-out tummy of scrunched organs, and decrease in height. There is no such store on the face of the earth!! But her new "friend" Mary (who describes her as "so sweet!"-barf) brings her plates of food on Christmas Day.....horrible family that we are, we came the day after Xmas! But she is so anti-social that she will not come with us to any holiday celebration with MY family. And I will not give up any more of my time to that miserable woman. So she is recuperating from that fall.....and I am at work.....when I get a call that Mary is at the apartment building and can't get Pearl to open the door. I try calling the son, who can't be reached, but by now they are at her front door and can hear her voice saying "I'm down here!". They want to call 911 but all I can think is that they will smash down a metal door to get in when I have a key!! DO NOT call 911!! I tell them. I am able to rush out and drive very fast to her place. There are 3 police cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck outside.....and inside some very annoyed firemen and paramedics lining the hallway!! I open the front door and there she is lying prone in the hallway...her head towards the TV room, her feet towards the front door. She grabs hold of my hand and won't let go even as the paramedics gruffly tell me to MOVE! So I manuever around to the top of her head and try to calm her, they put a cervical collar on her and start questioning her but she is in "loony-land". As they try to get her on the backboard, I'm explaining her back pain due to the hump and could they please put cushioning under her. So they take her out and deliver her to the local hospital, which is where I had been. Now we spend 8 hours in the ER as they check her out (tortoise-style) and finally admit her to a floor. But during the time we are in the ER, Pearl is having the most entertaining hallucinations! Bubbles, and clouds, and bugs. She talks about the "people who were in the apartment and wouldn't help" her, even though she asked them nicely. "They" woul;dn't even answer the phone that was ringing (Mary trying to reach her)! She kept reaching out her hand to "grab" unseen things and then got mad at us when we couldn't see them. We were thrilled when she went upstairs! ........to be continued.................