Friday morning, December 16, 2016, I arrived at my mother-in-law’s home for a routine “take her dog to groomer” pickup and was greeted with the sight of several emergency vehicles right in front of her place. She had fallen outside and hit her head.
Based on what we were told by the emergency doctors which was essentially “…let us cut two large holes in her head to drain the bleeding, she will not be the same person in any case, we would not do that to our mothers…OR let nature take its course here…”, I sent this text to family later that morning…
Yesterday my 87 year old mother-in-law left the hospital to go to a rehab facility and, frankly, I think it is actually possible she might end up having a 90% – 100% recovery and may even be able to return to her own home.
I would never tell anyone to ignore doctors BUT you do need to MANAGE them. The number of times doctors wrote Ginny off in the last weeks was astounding and our protestations that we were seeing “her” in her movements even when she was unconscious for days were unwaveringly met with polite and sometimes disdainful smiles and comments was quite surprising. Since we had already made The Hard Decision on Day 1, we were prepared for The Worst but she continued to improve most days.
ADVICE: Ask way too many questions of your doctors when it comes to any procedure, condition or treatment. Nurses know things. Ask them for their advice. You’re The Boss of You and your family when it comes to health care decisions.