Update On Nanny (After Her Fall)

So Nanny's fall was pretty bad. My mom, sister and I were up at the hospital the entire day on Sunday. Her chin, around her eye and her hand were terribly bruised. All swollen and a deep, deep shade of purple. She has a fracture in the hand, cheek and broke the orbital bone around her eye. Nanny was also pretty confused most of the day; she kept talking about events and people from 30 years ago or more. She knew who my sister and I were though without problem, but she thought one of the nurses was a co-worker from New York and the other nurse was her sister-in-law. The neurologist said that it was a really bad fall and there was significant head trauma as a result. Given the fact she's fallen in the past, she's high risk for future falls. And, given her age (94), they don't think she'll bounce back from it, even with rehab.

Right now, the plan is to get her into rehab for awhile (few weeks or more) to at least get her strength up and get her a little more stable on her feet. A big problem is that Nanny has vertigo, so she gets very dizzy very easily and gets off balance at the slightest motion. She needs her walker to keep from staggering and I guess for some reason (we're not entirely sure what since no one saw the exact fall, just heard her fall) she wasn't using it when she fell.

After rehab, she won't be able to go back to her Assisted Living place. It's too independent for her and the level of service they can provide just won't be enough. She's going to have to move long-term into a facility that has nurses and trained medical professionals. Mom looked at the Rehab center when we were up there on Sunday and it's really nice. And they have multiple wards for specialized, long-term residency which she'll move into after the rehab. I feel bad because it was hard enough getting her out of her home and into the Assisted facility but now she'll be in more of a clinical setting. And that's tough. It's also really tough on my Mom because as Nanny's power of attorney, she has to make these kinds of hard choices for her. And it's put a lot of stress on my mom as a result. Nanny's also gotten very angry at my mom because of it. Part of it is her dementia of course because when Nanny gets confused or forgets things, she compensates with anger. So it's not always really directed at my mom specifically, but she's still the one at the receiving end of it, you know?

Anyway, it was tough seeing her like that. And I hate to think that she's done so much, and been such a strong woman all her life but now, time has taken so much of that away from her. It's just sad.

I know my family and I would greatly appreciate any good thoughts/prayers/positive energy you can send her way right now. It's a tough time on all of us in different ways.

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