The MIL fell on Sunday and managed to break her hip. She had surgery yesterday and now has a series of screws and a spike (for lack of a better word) inserted. She may have already been hauled out of bed today to begin standing on it…the osteo doctor was supposed to clear her for PT sometime today.
The better-half and I were at the hospital for about 10 hours yesterday and most of that was sitting. I suppose we could have paced more but we’d brought stuff with us (the better-half squeezed in some work) so lugging it around wasn’t much of an option. Surprisingly, sitting for almost 10 hours is very tiring. We were whipped by the time we got home.
Two things that made us go hmmm:
The MIL is a Baptist. They have these people called Deacons. The MIL was one for years. Anyway, I guess one of their tasks is to visit with shut-ins. The new Deacon stopped by just a few minutes before the surgery team was going to wheel the MIL to the OR. The Deacon said a prayer (frankly, needs some polishing) and then she burst into tears. I rolled my eyes so hard that I’m surprised you didn’t see it. Jesus Christo, don’t come to the hospital and then start the waterworks. We were all doing just fine until you showed up. Thankfully, the MIL was so excited to get the show on the road that I don’t think she paid much attention.
Then the Deacon hung around for hours. I made a point of steering the better-half away from her because there was no way on this earth that I was going to make small talk with that freak. To her credit, she really wanted to see the MIL after recovery and she meant well, but she needs to hold her shit together. Bless her heart.
Second thing was the better-half’s uncle showed up late yesterday to hang out with us. He knew he wouldn’t get to see his sister last night, but thought we could use some conversation. Quite nice. Except when the better-half was allowed to peek into the recovery room to tell his mother we were leaving (I know, they let him do that–it had been HOURS waiting for her to wake up from the anesthesia) and I said to the uncle, “when he gets back we are out of here”. Wouldn’t you know, he gets out his laptop to ask a question about Outlook. We were there at least another 30 minutes. At that point I was too tired to kill anyone.
I can’t believe I forgot this part. It just cracked me up as I was thinking about it. Back in the late 1990s we took the MIL and a friend of ours to a book fair. On the way back, we played a variation on 20 Questions. The rule was you had to pick a person that everyone would know and then proceed with the game as usual. The MIL picked her Sunday School teacher from when she was a child. The friend still mentions how that cracked him up.
Yesterday we played the usual game of 20 Questions and one of the MIL’s answers was someone from her church that the F&G contingent has never met. Before we even started playing, the better-half said you can’t pick your Sunday School teacher so she picked some other random person from church. A bit later she picked an electronic Easter Bunny that played the Peter Cottontail song. At least she knows how to win the game.
At some point there was a break in the game playing and the better-half went down the hall to use the bathroom. The MIL started singing something. I couldn’t quite make it out and it turns out it was the Peter Cottontail song. I just cracked up when she said she couldn’t remember the rest of it. I thought she had just lost her mind. It turns out the old MIL is still in there but can’t get out as often as she used to. I couldn’t remember the rest of the song either. Turns out it is overly long–we looked it up on YouTube.