Bad weekend. Went to Krum, Texas, where my youngest brother, Tom, who lives in China was for a few days. He has bought a house there, near my oldest brother, John, and SIL, Janice, and was planning to retire there at the end of the year. When we arrived, we learned that both brothers had been at the emergency room in a Denton hospital for several hours. A bit later, they took Tom by ambulance to a hospital in Plano where he could get the orthopedic care he needed. He'd fallen and had dislocated his left shoulder and torn the rotary cuff, and had broken the left hip socket. He was in excruciating pain; he'd had to crawl through his house for 25 minutes to get to his cell phone.
I'm hoping this will be a wakeup call to all our family, and others, to be very, very careful when on ladders--even inside your home! Or not to be on ladders at all. He's only 62. He considers himself lucky; he could have hit his head or broken his neck or back.
Tom had surgery Saturday morning, which resulted in immediate relief from the pain and nausea caused by the pain medications. He'll have to be in a wheelchair 6 to 8 weeks while his shoulder heals, then another 6 weeks or so before he can put pressure on his left leg. He will recover completely, though. He'll not be returning to China to his teaching job. Meanwhile, his wife is frantic in China. She was to join him in Krum permanently in November. He's urging her not to come until he's going home, as there is nothing she can do. She can't drive and doesn't cook, so someone, likely me, will go help with that awhile.
Then when I opened my emails just after arriving home, I got a notice only an hour hold that one of my best friends died yesterday morning. Her death was expected and a relief, but still a hard blow. She lived about 1 1/2 hours from Krum, and I had been able to spend most of a day with her a month ago. She's had a long, hard battle with uterine cancer.