FALLING STARS
Chapter Thirty-Nine
September 14, 1995
Rose stretched as she walked across the lawn
toward her front door. Her pet Pomeranian, Freddy, tugged at the leash, eager
to get into the house and be fed. Keeping a tight hold on the little dog’s
leash, Rose stopped to pick up the newspaper, which this time had been thrown
in the flowerbed.
It was a pleasant morning, the sun barely up.
The weather was still pleasant, unlike in the later hours, when it would grow
hot. Rose had been walking around the neighborhood, as she had every morning
since she had moved to Ojai two years earlier.
Fishing the house key from her pocket, Rose
unlocked the door and opened it, letting Freddy go. He ran to his dish,
dragging his leash behind him, and danced around it, looking at her
expectantly. She laughed, removing his leash before she reached for the bag of
dog food.
Freddy was the second dog she had owned. The
first dog, the Scotty, Petunia, that Cal had brought her shortly after Jack had
died, had had to be put to sleep in 1988, when it was eighteen years old. In 1989,
Rose had seen Freddy in a pet store and had immediately fallen in love. The dog
had been her constant companion ever since.
Rose poured some food into Freddy’s dish, and
set the newspaper on the table. Humming to herself, she got out some cereal and
fruit for her own breakfast, and started boiling water for tea in the
microwave.
As she waited for the water to boil, she
opened the newspaper, skimming through the articles. At one hundred years old,
she often felt that she’d read them before, except that there were constantly
new people doing the same things. Once in a while something new would happen,
but not often, or at least it didn’t seem that way to her.
As the microwave beeped, Rose walked over to
get her water out, still looking at the headlines. The president was involved
in yet another scandal. Yet another piece of technology was becoming obsolete.
People were fighting in the Middle East--again. Nothing ever to seemed to
change, except for the names of the people involved. It was nice, she thought
ironically, to know that some things could always be relied on.
Later, Rose would admit that she should have
been paying more attention to where she was walking, but her mind was on the
newspaper as she reached for the microwave door, and she didn’t notice Freddy
walking right behind her feet. As she opened the door and stepped back, she
tripped over him, landing hard on the linoleum floor.
There was an ominous snapping sound, followed
almost immediately by a sharp stab of pain in her hip. Freddy yelped, running
out of the way, then ran back to her, whining.
Rose tried to get up, but the pain in her
right hip made it impossible. Swearing under her breath, she tried to think of
what to do.
It was probably a broken hip, she realized,
and swore again, knowing how many elderly people were left crippled by broken
hips. But the first thing to worry about, before thinking about being crippled,
was to figure out how to get off the kitchen floor. She didn’t think she could
walk, and even getting up was doubtful, but she had to do something.
Pushing her upper body up with her arms, Rose
managed to roll over on her left side, taking the pressure off the broken bone.
Grateful that she had kept her strength, she dragged herself across the floor
to the table where her cordless phone sat, using her arms and her left leg to
propel herself along. It was slow going, and the worried Pomeranian didn’t help
matters when he tried to lick her face, slowing her further. She pushed him away,
and somehow made it to the table.
The next step, an almost impossible one it
seemed, was getting the phone off the table. She tried to pull herself up, but
couldn’t quite manage it. Frustrated, she looked up at the phone on the table,
only a few feet away, but impossible to reach.
"Freddy!" she called. The dog ran
up to her, tail wagging. "Fetch!" She pointed to the phone. She
doubted the dog could really bring it to her, but if he could knock it on the
floor...
Reaching up, she patted the chair nearest the
phone, inviting the dog to jump up. He obeyed, sitting at the table as though
he expected to be served.
"Fetch the phone, Freddy!" Rose
implored, tugging on the line that the phone charger was attached to, making
her meaning clear.
The dog wagged his tail, thinking it a game,
and tried to pick up the phone charger. It was too heavy for him, but he
dragged it to the edge of the table, allowing Rose to reach up and knock it to
the floor.
Freddy jumped down, eager to continue the
game, but Rose stopped him, patting him on the head. Punching in 9-1-1, she
called an ambulance to help her.
Fighting against the pain of her broken hip,
Rose explained that she had tripped and fallen, and couldn’t get up. Giving her
name and address, she assured the dispatcher that she wasn’t in immediate
danger--she was in pain, yes, but it wouldn’t kill her--and then, when the
operator had allowed her to break the connection, she punched in Lizzy’s
number.
"Hello?" Lizzy picked up on the
second ring.
Rose had known there was a good chance Lizzy
would be home, since she telecommuted instead of working in an office.
Ordinarily, Lizzy didn’t like being disturbed at work, but in an emergency she
would set it aside.
"Lizzy?"
"What is it, Nana?"
At one time, Rose had marveled at Lizzy’s
ability to always know who was on the phone, until she had discovered that her
great-granddaughter had Caller ID.
"I fell...I think I broke my
hip..."
"Oh, no! Did you call an ambulance,
Nana?"
"Yes. It’s on its way. Could you meet me
at the hospital? I would have called Harry, but he’s at work..."
"So am I, Nana," Lizzy sounded a
little exasperated, "but yes, I’ll meet you there."
Rose heard her doorbell ring. "The
paramedics are here. I’ll see you at the hospital." She broke the
connection, shouting at the paramedics to come in.
In a few minutes, they had her loaded onto a
stretcher. They tried not to give her any more pain than she was already in,
but she still cried out in agony as they put her on the stretcher, and used a
few choice words to describe broken bones in general and her hip in particular.
Amazingly, it was the first time in her life
that she had broken a bone, and she sighed, resigned to the idea that it had to
happen sometime. After all, her bones had undoubtedly grown more brittle with
age, and most people seemed to break something at some point. She had spent
enough hours in doctor’s offices when she was younger, while one or another of
her children had a broken bone set, to know that. Her children had usually
broken bones through such things as falling out of trees or in roller skating
accidents, and she had nursed three of her adventurous youngsters through
broken arms and ankles.
Rose noticed that the paramedic had an amused
look on his face, and scowled. "What are you laughing at?"
He tried to wipe the smile from his face.
"Sorry, Ma’am. I just haven’t heard many older ladies use those
words."
Rose looked at him, distracted from her pain
for the moment. "I couldn’t use them when I was younger, because I had to
teach my children not to say them. Now that I’m old, I can say what I
want." She set her jaw stubbornly.
The paramedic laughed again, then looked
surprised when Rose laughed with him. With her hip immobilized, she could
concentrate on something other than the pain.
The ambulance arrived at the hospital a few
minutes later, and she was wheeled into the emergency room. Lizzy met her
there, looking frightened, but she soon relaxed when she saw that her
great-grandmother was in no immediate danger.
A few hours later, Rose’s broken hip had been
set, and she was resting comfortably. The X-rays had revealed that the injury
was an intertrochanteric fracture of the right femur. When Rose had asked to
have this translated into English, the radiologist had explained that it meant
that her thighbone was broken three inches from the hip socket. A compression
screw and side plate had been attached surgically to the broken bone, holding
the bone in place while allowing it to move normally.
Rose was a bit groggy from the anesthesia at
first, but soon became more alert. Lizzy was beside her when she woke up.
"Nana, how did you fall? I never thought
you were one to fall easily. I mean, just last summer you were dancing with
Uncle Harry at the family reunion."
Rose looked a little sheepish. "I was
opening the microwave and reading the newspaper at the same time. I stepped
back and tripped over Freddy."
"That dog’s going to be the death of
you."
"Actually, I got him to ‘fetch’ the
phone for me. He knocked the cordless phone charger to the edge of the table,
trying to pick it up, and I pulled it onto the floor and called an ambulance,
and then called you."
"I guess he does have some uses."
Lizzy wasn’t overly fond of the Pomeranian, who always yapped loudly when she
came to visit.
"Speaking of Freddy, could you possibly
take care of him until I get out of here? I know he barks at you, but he really
does like you."
"Uh-huh." Lizzy sighed. "All
right, Nana, I’ll take him to my apartment until you’re better. You’re just
lucky my landlord allows pets."
"Thank you, Lizzy. And while you’re
picking him up, could you please put the phone back on the table, close the
microwave, and make sure my house is locked?" Rose grimaced. "I don’t
want anyone moving in or absconding with my belongings while I’m gone."
"Sure, Nana." Lizzy stood.
"Now, get better as soon as you can. Do what the doctor tells you, and
don’t make anyone mad by swearing at them."
"I see you were talking to the
paramedic."
"Yeah."
"I don’t swear that much, dear. Only
when events require it. A broken hip requires it."
Lizzy laughed. "Like a magical
incantation, I take it."
"Whatever you choose to call it. It’s
better than just lying there in pain."
"I’ll see you later, Nana. I called
Uncle Harry at work, and he’ll be by to see you when he’s done."
"Thank you, Lizzy. Now, go get Freddy
before he makes a mess on the carpet, and please pick up my mail and bring it
to me when you next come to visit."
"All right, Nana. I’ll see you tomorrow."