\u201cEverything looks so different,\u201d my mother said as we drove down King Street. She had her face pressed up to the window like she had never seen St. Augustine before. Like this was her first time driving through town. If I had put the window down, I imagine she would have stuck her head out like a dog. <\/p>\n
\u201cUm, it\u2019s all the same,\u201d I said. \u201cYou haven\u2019t been in there that long.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it looks different,\u201d she said, \u201cand it has been \u2018that long.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She was right. <\/p>\n
I keep a list of dates on my phone. It chronicles my mother\u2019s \u201cFall of Falls.\u201d From the first one, when she broke a hip, to another one during recovery when she fractured her knee. It lists the surgeries. The discharges. And now the trip home, carefully executed with a car full of wheelchairs, walkers and other home healthcare doo-hickies.
\n<\/p>\n
When I added that final date to the list, I realized how off I had been when I told people how long she had been away from home. \u201cOh, about three weeks,\u201d I would say. \u201cNot that long.\u201d <\/p>\n
But when I put that final date into my phone, I realized from first trip by ambulance for the hip to this ride down King Street, it had all stretched to a little over 5 weeks. <\/p>\n
Five weeks! A healthcare eternity. No wonder it all looked so different. <\/p>\n
And why it now felt like I was springing her from prison. Not that Flagler Hospital or Bayview have been anything like prisons. In fact, they became homes away from home, filled with friends and comforting hallways. The people who worked with my mother have all been fantastic. True caregivers. What the word should mean. Thank you, all of you. <\/p>\n
But you can only stare at the same walls so long. It\u2019s tough trading away your independence and freedom to heal bones. You can only roll the hallways of a rehab center so many times before you want to stretch your legs and go see more. See what the rest of the world looks like. And if it\u2019s any different now. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go to lunch,\u201d my mother declared as we drove away. \u201cWe can go anywhere!\u201d<\/p>\n
She said it the way a kid does when set loose in an arcade with $1,000 worth of quarters. Like a jailbreaker: \u201cThe coppers can\u2019t stop me now!\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cCome on!\u201d I thought. \u201cLet\u2019s just go to the house and get situated. There\u2019s too much to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
But when you\u2019re finally free, there\u2019s no putting you back in the box. Not when everything looks so different. Not when you can roll down the window and stick your head out. And certainly not when it\u2019s been that long. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cEverything looks so different,\u201d my mother said as we drove down King Street. She had her face pressed up to the window like she had never seen St. Augustine before. Like this was her first time driving through town. If I had put the window down, I imagine she would have stuck her head out like a dog. \u201cUm, it\u2019s all the same,\u201d I said. \u201cYou haven\u2019t been in there that long.\u201d \u201cWell, it looks different,\u201d she said, \u201cand it has been \u2018that long.\u2019\u201d She was right. I keep a list of dates on my phone. It chronicles my mother\u2019s \u201cFall of Falls.\u201d From the first one, when she broke a hip, to another one during recovery when she fractured her knee. It lists the surgeries. The discharges. And now the trip home, carefully executed with a car full of wheelchairs, walkers and other home healthcare doo-hickies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[553,561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-nutshells","category-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1340,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions\/1340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}