We had quite an eventful evening on Friday. Thursday night my mom came out to Brooklyn to watch Roan so that Sam and I could go out. We went to dinner (Buttermilk Channel, very good) and then to a movie (Snowpiercer, outlandishly improbable but entertaining).
Then, in a fit of generosity, my mom offered to take Roan back to her house for Friday night. Two date nights in a row??!! Yes please. Off they went. I spent the morning looking up Things to do tonight in a desperate hope that something remarkably and uniquely New York would be happening that required no advance planning and little money. Eventually I hit on the idea of going to Coney Island. Classic date night! Perfect!
Alas, a bit too perfect. At 6pm I got a call from Sam; my mom and Roan were walking back from the park on the UES when she tripped and fell. On Roan. And her wrist, which she was pretty sure she had broken. An ambulance was called. Date night would have to be postponed.
Apparently it was a bit of a scene. Roan was pretty freaked out and his back was sore and my poor mom was in pain. Some kind ladies in a hair salon gave Roan a lollipop and called an ambulance. As soon as my mom told Roan he was going to ride in an ambulance he perked up. The paramedics were fantastic, apparently. They took the injured parties to Lenox Hill, where my mom used to work.
It certainly pays to have connections because my mom and Roan got first class treatment. My mom knew all the doctors and nurses attending to them and by the time Sam and I arrived Roan had introduced himself to everyone and was having a pretty grand time with all the fuss and excitement. He had a bruise on his back but was otherwise fine.
My mom, on the other hand, did not get off so easy, but for what could have happened was remarkably lucky after all. She broke her wrist but it was her left wrist and it was a clean break. She was fast tracked into a private room and a jocked up orthopedist set her wrist (which was NO fun but my mom, knowing what was about to happen, quite literally bit the bullet) and gave her a splint. We thought she might get a blue cast to match her hair, but in the end just a splint (which is way more comfortable, although not blue).
All the while my mom was far more concerned about Roan ("I think my elbow went into his back! Ask him if his fingers or toes are tingling!") and the fact that she spoiled our date night. Oh, mom, that's so mom of you.
I stayed with her that night which was a good thing because in all of the excitement we hadn't really considered how tricky it would be to do everything with one hand. Taking out/putting in contact lenses? Opening childproof bottles? Typing? Not so easy. But she's a trooper and she's resourceful and above all unflappable.
The hardest part now is to get her to rest and not do stuff. When I checked in yesterday to see how she was coping she said "I'm bored!" I hope she feels confident enough to have Roan stay over as soon as her wrist has healed, not so much for us but because, if anything, this incident proved to me not that she is fragile but that she is one tough, capable broad.
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| Roan on his throne |
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| Mom |