The sound of one hand typing

Many of my friends and readers have asked about my mom and how she is doing, so I thought I would provide a pupdate.  Mom has a "comminuted" fracture of her left radius and ulna.  We were out hiking last Saturday and she slipped on a wet slippery rock, fell backwards, and caught herself with her left hand.


Because the bone is broken into several pieces, mom is having surgery tomorrow to install a titanium plate with a couple screws -- to put things back together and hold them together until things heal.  (I can picture it now -- my Uncle Randy will be chasing her around with a magnet.)  The joint wasn't involved, which is great news, and the surgery is being performed by the doc who did both of mom's carpal tunnel surgeries, who is thought to be the best hand/wrist doc in Richmond.


Mom is not really worried about it because she has had a number of other surgeries, the most notable of which was when she fractured her left olecranon (a small bone in the elbow) 20+ years ago in a hang gliding accident (yes, I said hang gliding) and had to have it wired together.  (People think my mom is brave/crazy now -- you should have seen her when she was young.)

Mom & what was left of her training glider
circa 1991

Mom with crunched hang glider

Mom says to tell everyone she appreciates the thoughts and kind words.  She is doing fine and sees this all as a minor inconvenience and a consequence of an active life.  

Mom doing fine

As you know, mom is my assistant, IT staff, chauffeur, hiking buddy, chief belly-rubber, etc.  She was working on helping me with a couple blog posts before she broke her wrist, so she will likely help me finish those up because they are already mostly typed.  But I may be blogging less frequently for a while until she gets full use of both hands back.  She said it's difficult to type with one hand.  Hmpfff - try typing with PAWS.  And the Silly Photo Contest prizes will be delayed for perhaps another month or two.  (Mom can't even open mail right now, much less package up prizes.)  


But as long as she can still scratch my belly, we're good


Mom insists that I include some photos of her actually flying, lest you draw false conclusions about her hang gliding skills from the above photos.  Before she retired from hang gliding, she earned her Hang 2 hang glider pilot's rating and had 9 mountain flights and hundreds of training hill flights under her belt.

5/9/94 - Mom's first mountain flight

Thanksgiving 1994 - Mom & her snazzy
new glider