Some will tell you that time flies, others, it marches on. Shakespeare says that tomorrow creeps in a petty pace from day to day. As for Ma, she and her roommate at the rehab facility are caught in that time-worn frustrating web of hurry up and wait to get better.
On one hand, Ma is in better condition than that day nearly three weeks ago when she fell and broke her hip. On the other hand, due to the nature of the bone breakage, she is not allowed to put any weight on her left foot. So, she hops holding onto a walker twice a day in the therapy room from her wheelchair to the bed she is asked to lie down on and do muscle strengthening exercises. This can go on for two more weeks until she is permitted to progress to the next step in the road back to self-sustenance.
Later in the coming week, she will be re-evaluated and told whether the rehab will continue at the facility or as an outpatient at home. This obviously is of concern because she cannot be by herself for now. In today’s world the decision is made by those who finance the effort to help her recover. Medicare pays for the first twenty days at a 100% rate for all allowable billing. After that, Medicare pays 80% and the private insurance company that handles the part B coverage pays the remaining 20%.
The fly in the ointment is that Medicare has to be persuaded that she can recover in a realistic time frame of six to eight weeks. Otherwise, all bets are off with funding.
The lady who shares her room also improves each day. However, she has a greater road to recovery. She was found by her son laying at the bottom of the stairs in her basement after 8 hours suffering from
a partially broken neck, facial cuts, fractured arm and other surface injuries.
When I first saw her, she was lying flat on her back all bandaged up like a mummy. Now, she can sit in a wheelchair and even goes through daily therapy. Her wit is about her, too, as she readily switches between speaking in English and Swedish depending on with whom she converses. What helps make the sharing of the room pleasant for both ladies is that they are also both long-suffering Chicago Cub fans.
Ma asks me if I write about her and I nod in the affirmative. So she says, “well, make sure you spell my name right, ha ha.” Like I’m gonna screw up two letters?
Ma is impatient to go back home and to the way things used to be. She has been down this road before. Five years ago, she fell and it was her left hip and shoulder that took the brunt and both required reconstruction. At that time, it was while visiting my sister in the East coast. So she spent two months rehabbing there only to find out when she returned to Chicago that the doctors butchered their medical decision out East to ignore the shoulder and let it heal on its own. It required a re-break and more surgery.
How much can a person endure pain and the aftermath of getting better? I guess time will tell.