another one of those phone calls...

it always makes my heart skip a beat when I see that "724-" pop up. someday soon it's going to mean really bad news. luckily, this time it was just bad news.

yesterday after driving my mother home from therapy - you might remember that she broke her shoulder back in October - my father slipped and fell on the way to the Post Office (across the street). my mother stopped the story right here to interject that they needed to get the mail because the day before it was only 10 degrees outside so they didn't leave the house. not sure where he fell, but it wasn't too far away from the front door because by the time my mother got out downstairs he had gotten himself inside and into a chair in the sun parlor (just inside the door.) when she asked him what happened he said that he fell and his hip "hurt like the Dickens." funny, my father swears up a storm with the best of them, but in this instance he chose to tone it down a little.

mom called the ambulance and had him delivered to the nearest hospital. they did the x-rays and discovered that he had in fact broken his hip...the ball part. OUCH!!! I can't even imagine. I'm going to get some milk right now. so, they have to do surgery to replace the hip. I guess this is the one and only thing they do for broken hips these days. they can't do the surgery just yet because he is on blood thinners for his heart, so they have to wait until the medicine clears out of his system. they anticipate his hospital stay this time to be 2.5 weeks.

during the conversation my sister interjected that she was tired of this and sending them to live with my brother in Florida after this. she was joking, of course, but the "guilt train" has already left the station.