Crossing the Bar/Falling

NuclearGrammy is now dying. Well, maybe not dying, but nothing good is going to happen from here on out. She has fallen again, and broken her hip as well as tibia, fibula, and various ribs. This time, they're not operating, they've just put her in a brace/cast/whatever and given her lots o' morphine. BigGrampa and his sister, who has Power of Attorney and NuclearGrammy's medical directive, have agreed that palliative treatment is it.

I agree with them. A 97-year old woman with her third hip break in a decade, and additional breaks, isn't on the mend. NuclearGrammy was up and walking around in December, albeit with a walker. Now, she's doped up on narcotics and will not be walking again. She's been explaining how to make apple pie to the nurses. She has explained to them how a Chinese exchange student in the 1950s found the New Hampshire habit of her daughter of eating cheese on apple pie for breakfast totally repugnant even as he had a ginormous crush on said daughter. She's been singing ditties from the late 20s and early 30s, when my grandfather (ten years dead) was courting her.

BigBob has totally lost the plot and been going on the rampage about how NuclearGrammy was a wonderful mother (she was, I'm sure, if a tad fierce and harsh) and how her children should do everything possible to promote a recovery, do all treatment necessary.

Call me cold-blooded, but I agree with BigGrampa and his sister Aunt Y. BigGrampa cared for his second wife while she died of ovarian cancer, and Aunt Y cared for her mother-in-law during her years of decline and dementia. Neither has any delusions about recovery once the owl calls your name/once the bell tolls for you/once you've played twister with death.

At the same time, I'm having that foresight into what it feels like to be old and frail: I'm still doing physical therapy from my dislocated therapy, and I'm still anxious about falling when I walk on ice or snow or go up or down stairs. Skating is still verboten. That whole "I've fallen and I can't get up" thing is a lot scarier when you actually have the image of what it feels like to fall. And yes, physical therapy is progressing, but I'm still anxious.

FoilMormor is feeling her mortality as well: she's made her plans to close up shop in Florida and move to New England full-time, saying "I just don't want to spend my last years alone in Florida." I actually understand what she's saying even as I want to yell at her: "Mom, given your parents' life spans (and their lives were cut short as Christian Scientists who didn't get medical treatment) you can reasonably expect another healthy ten years." But she recently scattered her husband's ashes and she's feeling old. Not as old as her ex-mother-in-law, and I have nothing to realistically complain about. But still.

I've got to get back into shape. DG is just five, TG is just ten, and I need to keep up with them as an active parent. No more falling and dislocating my shoulder/elbow/hip/whatever.