1. It's time to get ready to return to Maryland and today I packed two boxes of clothes and gifts I don't have room for in my suitcase and mailed them to Greenbelt. I also packed my suitcase. I did these things on Thursday because I leave on Friday afternoon and I hate doing things at the last minute -- usually.
2. Carol and Paul invited Mom and me over to their house for dinner. I took the car out of the driveway and parked it where I always do for Mom to get in easily. Mom, as she always does, especially when the sidewalks are clear and dry, started down her front porch steps, with her cane, and down the sidewalk. As I was getting out of the car to help her get in, Mom fell. I temporarily had my back turned as I was getting out of the car and it was at that moment that she fell. She landed on crusty snow in the front yard, her nose bleeding and her glasses askew. Mom sent me into the house to get a box of Kleenex (and, believe it or not, to turn out a light a left on) and when I came right back out, our neighbor Jane was with her, questioning her about where she hurt, how she was, and so on. Mom sat up, accounted for her glasses, defiantly insisted she was all right, and Jane and I lifted her to her feet and she was all right, mostly. No knee, ankle, leg, or hip injury. The most damage was to her face. She had a bloody nose. The frames of her glasses jammed into her face and caused bruising under her eyes and across the bridge of her nose. We drove to Carol's where Mom, with Paul's help, got into Carol's house without incident. She genuinely seemed good, aside from the bruising. Her nose bleed subsided and we got ready for dinner.
3. At Carol's, Mom discovered that a lens came out of her glasses. I went back to her house to see if I could find it. I did. It had started snowing. Upon returning to Carol's, I said we must take the dinner over to Mom's before the snow got worse. And we did. Mom got back into her house without incident before the snowfall increased much and, despite being unsettled by Mom's spill, we all gathered ourselves and enjoyed the dinner of stuffed peppers, corn bread, fruit salad, and a beet side dish that Carol had prepared.
I think the snow that Mom tripped into broke her fall. Even though the snow wasn't soft, I think it helped keep Mom's spill from being worse. Thank goodness she didn't fall forward on the concrete.
Mom thinks the fall happened because she lost her concentration. Her mind wandered and she wasn't paying attention to walking.
That's probably true. Whatever caused the spill, I'm left with the knowledge that Mom's physical condition is fragile. Her balance especially is fragile. Her legs, even when free of pain, as they are right now, are wobbly.
It makes it difficult for me to be packing my suitcase and getting ready to leave.
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