Emergency After The Emergency

A few months ago, my mother had a bad fall at dinner with relatives. She was taken to the emergency room of a well-respected hospital, had her broken arm set and a cast up to her shoulder was put on to stabilize it until fully healed.

Then she was sent home. Nice, but how was she supposed to get up and down the stairs to the toilet, bath, bedroom? How was she supposed to get dressed with one hand? How was she supposed to write down care instructions, when her writing arm was in a cast?

Apparently, things like this are regular occurrences to people who have been treated in emergency rooms. Patients are sent out not given clear written instructions concerning, diagnosis, medication, follow-up etc. And like what happened to my mother, the staff doesn't make sure there's someone to care for the patient.

B"H, my mother recovered, and when the doctor took off the cast, she asked if she could drive again.

"Just start slowly by driving around the block," he answered.

That may sound fine in theory, but my parents live on a short, narrow, dead end road, off of a very steep hill. There's no "safe block" to drive around. The hill is so steep that someone once driving me home, obviously his first time on Vista Hill Road, went into a panic at its sudden steepness, and just kept going, missing my street, running through a major road, and a miracle saved us from an accident.