Grandpa Spatula fell down today and apparently broke his OTHER hip...some of you probably remember that he broke one hip a few weeks ago, and had a bionic titanium hip replacement put in. Apparently he was walking out to get the mail and the neighbor's dog jumped up on him and knocked him down, where he laid until the neighbor came out and called an ambulance. I'm not sure what exactly is going on yet, but my mom and I are waiting for my dad to call us from the hospital and then we'll probably go on over there in a little while. I think this is where my dad makes some hard decisions about sending G'pa Spatula to an assisted living facility, the good news being that the one here is really great and well run...my mom volunteers there with Molly the Satanic Dog, so they would get to see him all the time, and it's just a few blocks from my parents. Of course, not sure exactly what's going on yet until we get a call from my dad -- but it seems not good. As always, there is drama coming from the assholish other relative that lives in town, but I'm sure we won't hear about that until we're alone with my dad. *sigh* This Thanksgiving is going down in the record books as "not so great."
Update later I'm sure.
UPDATE (6:43pm): Grandpa Spatula went straight from the ER into surgery and had three or four screws placed in his hip to hold all the pieces together. This is apparently much less invasive than the full replacement he had a few weeks ago and they expect him to be up and around this week. He got out of surgery about 30 minutes ago and seems to be pretty alert. I guess the whole story is something like: He took his dog (Dingo) out for a walk, a dog from the neighbor's house attacked Dingo and Grandpa, Grandpa tried to use his walking stick to make the dog stop, and the dog basically knocked the stick away and knocked Grandpa over. Owner of the dog came out to see what was going on, called an ambulance, called my Uncle, and then rode to the hospital with Grandpa. There is apparently some family drama going on with Uncle and Daddy Spatula, but Dad's not home from the hospital yet...but this is the same Uncle that disrupted Thanksgiving as well. And the same Uncle that is in his early 50's and is "finding himself" while living rent free with Grandpa Spatula, and not working, and hates his life and everyone in it, and is just generally bipolar and a huge waste of space, while my dad tends to my Grandpa's every need. Oh relatives, aren't they great? Anyway, tomorrow I drive home, so maybe an update tomorrow night. Also, it's snowing in the mountains, which would be pretty if I didn't have to drive through it tomorrow morning at 7am. *sigh* Let's just hope it doesn't take 10 hours, my nerves are shot.
