We found a place near the St. Mary’s hospital to drop the camper so we could visit Mom easily and dad pretty easily. My brother and sister-in-law have been coming up every day to support my mom in the hospitals after her fall. She had a brain bleed and needed an operation to put a tube in and drain the blood, then the next day she had another to fix the bleeding source. She was at St. Joseph’s until I think Friday when they moved her to St. Mary’s.
She was pretty out of it the first couple of days and could not move much or get out of bed. She had a huge shiner and hematoma on her left eye, a swollen and bruised knee and wrist, and several scrapes. She has a team of Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, and Speech Therapists along with the nurses and doctors and by Monday she was moving a bit in her bed. By Wednesday she could manage the utensils and start to feed herself. She took her first steps on Wednesday on the parallel bars and on Thursday, managed a bit on the walker. On Friday she managed the walker all the way down the hall and back and is feeding herself and getting in and out of bed with a bit of help.
I have visited Dad three times this week as well and we watched UofA beat the Arkansas Razerbacks on Thursday. It has been nice to spend some time with him. He is in a wheelchair now, and says he gets up and down and walks a bit, but I have not seen that yet. He was supposed to go home on the 18th but after mom fell, he has had to stay in the Handmaker’s facility. Mom is supposed to get out on April 7, but to where we don’t know yet. It may be back home with some help, or to another place where she can get some more therapy. I think based on her progress the past couple of days, she will be headed home with some home care. She’ll be walking and probably able to do all the bathroom stuff by Friday this week, based on the progress she has already made.
It has been a tough week emotionally and I am glad we came back to help out. Rick and Terry have been shouldering this the past 8 months as dad has had troubles and now with mom, it is double duty. David has been coming over every week since Dad went into Handmakers while we have been on the PanAmerican Highway. It has been nice to get to talk to mom; help her out; and spend some time with the family. Kathy has been truly amazing and is such a fantastic support with all her love and understanding.
We found a campground about a 10 minute walk to the hospital and dropped the camper there. It is HOT here in Tucson and the campground is more of a parking lot, so she has been living in a little box. The AC has been performing amazingly and the charger has been keeping up for the most part. The campground has a bathroom and a pool, although no showers. Kathy’s friend here in town offered her place to shower, so we did that on Thursday. We have extended the stay there for two weeks. We tried to find other places, but they were just too far away and not much nicer. We did manage to wash Howie off over a couple of days. It really needs a good buff, caulking removal, a new paint job, and re-caulking all of the joints. But for now, she is still working well for what we need.
Funny thing happened when we went to dinner Thursday. We found a place called El Antojo Pablano to eat dinner. As we walked in we saw the church we stayed near in Cholula, Mexico with the volcano behind it. On the walls were paintings of the various towns in central Mexico that we had either been through or traveled past on the last several days there. We talked to the server and then to the owner, who is from Puebla. His food is authentic to the region and I enjoyed his Mole de Pollo dish very much.
Last night we headed to Willcox and will drop Howie off in my parent’s back yard. We will pick up the 5th wheel at my brother’s house and clean stuff out of it and get it ready to take back to Tucson and will live out of that for the coming weeks. There is more space in it and will be a bit of an upgrade while we figure out the next stage of our life and our expedition. For now we are enjoying visiting and helping out where we can. I’ll keep updating every few days as things change.