Dad came back to stay here last Tuesday and we had a good few days with no raised voices or walking on eggshells. Then on Friday just before lunch I got a call at work from my neighbour who said that Dad had fallen and she'd rung an ambulance. When I got home the ambulance still hadn't arrived, and Dad was laying on the front path and couldn't move his leg. He'd gone out to collect the mail for me.
I followed the ambulance to Junee Hospital where Dr Corbett immediately phoned Wagga to order x-rays for a fractured hip. I hung around in the Emergency Dept. in Wagga from 1 to 7.30pm when the orthopaedic surgeon came to speak to us. It was pretty scary what he had to say, even suggesting that they might not operate at all because of Dad's poor health.
After consultation with the anaesthetist, Dad was taken up to surgery this morning, and this afternoon he's out of recovery and everything went well. He's had a partial hip replacement and still has a long road to recovery but I expect he'll be getting around again in a few weeks. I'm hoping that after a couple of days they'll bring him back here to Junee Hospital. I can have lunch with him each day at least. I'll need to speak to a doctor because I'm really not sure what comes after a hip replacement. Obviously the scar needs to heal and there'll be physiotherapy, but for how long I don't know.
It's a huge relief to know it all went well. The doctor had us thinking he could die on the operating table because of the poor state of his lungs, so I'm very grateful that the man upstairs was looking out for him.
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