Take-A-Step Thursday #7 – Everything’s Gonna Be All Right

The past 10 days have been pretty rough for my family. Last week on March 31st, a day before my scheduled Take 5 post went live, my 65-year old mother fell and fractured her right thigh, more specifically the femur bone which ironically is the strongest bone in the body. For a delicate creature with many years of orthopedic problems due to osteoporosis, this was no small deal.

I cannot begin to tell you how much it shook all of us up. Seeing our delicate mamma in intense pain just broke our hearts and reduced my older sister and I to masses of constant tears. We just couldn’t bear to see our doe-like mum in that situation. My 72-year young dad, like the rock that he is in any situation, tried to keep us calm by constantly stating that everything would be all right. Mum had an operation last Thursday, started physiotherapy and hobbling around slowly with a walker on Saturday. We have been back from the hospital since Monday evening and our old comfortable routine has of course metamorphosed into something wildly different.

Before the fall, my mother was an active housewife who kept our home together. She would hardly take a sick leave from her daily duties despite her back and leg problems and even if she did take a sick day off on account of a fever, she would bounce back the very next day. You can imagine the pain we feel seeing our mobile mum suddenly confined to a bed with occasional bits of hobbling here and there. I can’t even begin to imagine what she must be feeling like inside having to become so reliant on us to help her complete even the simplest of tasks.

I have never admitted it to anyone except a couple of close friends, but I was born anxious. I can even trace this condition back to my early childhood years. A highly stressed person, I would panic in any situation that was beyond my control and felt unsafe and insecure outside my comfort zone. Things have gotten way better in the past few years since I learned to deal with the unexpected but when this incident happened with my mum, I was back to feeling a ball of wreck inside. I was going through the motions physically of being there for my mom and my family, but my mind was constantly thinking of the worst case scenarios that an elderly person can go through in this case and pessimistic Google wasn’t helping one bit.

Everything seemed like a bad dream. I wasn’t able to face the music and putting it into actual words just made it all so real and irreversible. Which is why I didn’t blog about it before. I even wrote a draft post a day before the surgery, hoping to seek blessings and good wishes from my lovely blogger peers for the full and speedy recovery of my darling mum but I just couldn’t go through with it and deleted it right away.

However, despite the terrible ordeal, I am now choosing to focus on being grateful for so many things. That both my parents are alive and well. That my mum’s surgery was a huge success. That she is in the pink of health otherwise. That she is learning how to walk again. That I am somewhat able to focus on the important tasks at hand of taking control of the household without giving away to total despair and crying like a lunatic. That I have my entire family, friends, this blog and you all to keep me sane.

I would like to thank Sherina of SherinaSpeaks for having participated in Take-A-Step Thursday last week and to the lovely inspiring bloggers of Take 5 who replied back last week. I would also like to thank Ashley of Dear World for nominating me for the Creative Blogger Award which is truly an honor, to Emily of The Diary of a Bibliophile and SlySpeaks for giving me a shout out on their lovely blogs. I am truly sorry for not having replied to your comments earlier on my previous post but please know that I have been reading and appreciating each one of them with all of my heart. Reading your blogs while staying at the hospital with my mum was really instrumental in keeping me together.

Anything that is not related to my mum is making me super guilty. And by that, I mean maintaining this blog has probably taken a backseat. While I will of course continue to read your blogs and not completely remove myself from the blogosphere, I don’t know if I can focus on this blog at the moment or even think about accomplishing any of my challenges, goals or projects but I know that writing is the one thing that will keep me going in the long run and I promise to try to be present here as much as possible.

Meanwhile, I am praying to God every single day for my mum’s speedy recovery and I know that He is listening for sure.

Thank you for reading and God Bless you all!

You can email me at thistlesandwhistles@hotmail.com
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