update

Surgery went o.k. The broken bone (upper end of femur, according to Charlie, who was in on everything) was splintered, but the surgeon was surprised to find that the bone quality was better than he'd expected. Metal parts installed. The surgeon said that it would be partially weight bearing, but to what extent we won't know for a couple of days. What this translates to is what her after-care will consist of. Hospital stays don't usually run more than three or four days; the question is whether she'll go to a nursing home to recover for a while or directly to a facility that does intensive therapy. If she goes to a nursing home for a couple of weeks (or more?) we hope they'll have room in Spring Valley, since it's a decent facility and only a mile from us. We could see her a lot more then, though it would be less convenient for other visitors. Still, the drive out here is beautiful this time of year. Anyway, we'll keep everyone up on this via the blog and via telephone.

She came out of the anaesthesia hoping to wake up from the nightmare and then, sadly, realized that it was real. She is not nearly as goofy as last time, though. We've told them to not give her vicadan, which made her insane. We'll be on our way to see her soon, leaving here at 7:00 a.m.

The other major news from this sector is rain. The heavens opened over River Falls during Florence's surgery (all kinds of violent storm and tornado warnings), and the storm moved on to SV soon after that. The trees are battered (lots of small limbs down) but we found no major damage either at her house or here. And it's still raining!! This is very wonderful.

O.K., my turn in the shower. More anon.