Looking Forward To A New Year

It's New Year's Eve's Eve.

After an eventful 7 weeks of activity, things have calmed down around the Knox household. After several weeks of daily hospital and rehabilitation center visits, it's been a long time coming.

On November 16th Mom was planning to do what she normally had done since her and Dad's move to Conroe 10 months earlier: she was going to her church. It was the first full week after the change from Daylight Savings to Standard Time, so it was dark as night when she left home. We wouldn't find out until later that, in addition to driving after dark, she had forgotten to wear hear glasses. That oversight changed everything.

My wife and I had attended a concert that one of our children was participating in. We stopped to get something to eat and were about to go home when we received a frantic phone call. Mom had fallen at her church. She was bleeding and hurt badly. We left immediately and called our son on the way to ask him to accompany her.  We met her and our son at the hospital. She had a broken wrist and hip along with multiple facial bruises and appeared to be on the receiving end of a merciless beating. It would be several hours later before she would be admitted to the hospital and another week before she would be released to a local in-patient rehabilitation facility.

Mom spent 2 weeks in that facility. Dad spent a few days there and spent the rest with my sister's family. She and my Dad would spend Thanksgiving as patients at the rehab. But, when Mom arrived back at home, it seemed everything was getting back to normal. Little did we know there would be more to come.

A mere four days after Mom and Dad both returned home, Dad fell and broke his hip. My wife and I were across town at a Christmas Tree Lighting in downtown Conroe. Mom called and told me that Dad fell and needed help getting up. Only, I wouldn't be able to help him. He would ultimately go back to the same hospital where he had visited my mother but now as a patient. After a successful surgery, was to send Dad to the same rehabilitation hospital where he and Mom had been just a few weeks before. We ended up spending Christmas together in that facility. Dad was released the following Tuesday, just 3 days ago.

In the days since Dad returned home, I've been busy making adjustments for accessibility for our house and their apartment. There were things we knew needed attention: handrails and adequate steps leading into our house; additional storage and removal of potential tripping hazards in their apartment. So, in the remaining days of my Christmas Break, addressing those issues is what I've been doing.

Yet, as I consider what I have left to do before this last "free" weekend, I continue to remind myself... regardless of what I have to do around here, it's much better to be doing it on my back patio. And, as my family and I look forward to 2011, we hope that we won't be spending any future holidays anywhere other than at home.

Welcome...

A lot of things have transpired within the last couple of years in the lives of my family and my parents, Haynes & Jessie Knox. Those who know them are quite aware. Of course the things that have happened aren't any different from what other families have experienced with aging parents.

I've heard of some bizarre and out-right frightening experiences that friends and colleagues have faced with their parents. But, as I have learned, each family's experience is unique in that their experiences happened to their family. It's in that sense that I begin this blog.

I hope to chronicle my experiences with my parents in order to remember and cherish my time with them in the twilight of their lives. (My mother would argue that she has yet to get to her twilight). The truth is that I wouldn't trade anything for the opportunity to be with my parents during the time of their greatest need.