Oh boy

Thank goodness I had a nice, relaxing weekend to prepare for today.

My day started with an emergency research project that I was happy to get.  I like research and haven't done much lately.

And then my mother's doctor's office called to let us know that her surgery is indefinitely postponed because the custom implant that is being made for her is not ready yet.  What???  Nobody told us this two weeks ago when you scheduled her surgery and then sent us to the hospital for pre-admission where they dropped her and broke her femur. (It turned out that the fracture was not a cause to delay the surgery, but she had a urinary tract infection that delayed it for a week-or so we thought.)  Apparently there is a backlog on custom hip implants right now, and hers was especially complicated. 

It could be another month before the implant is ready.  Which means another month in rehab.  And it also puts the scheduling of the next surgery in a very hairy time for me.  I have about a zillion depositions and a couple of hearings in November.  And my firm has a huge trial starting January 3rd--I'm not on that trial team, but because we are a small firm I am definitely feeling the effects. 

And as soon as I got off the phone with the doc, I saw about 5 missed calls on my cell.  Apparently SS started running a fever at school, and DH had to go get her. Looks like strep. She will be out again tomorrow, so DH and I will have to paper-scissors-rock to see who gets to stay home.  But I loaded up all of my research, just in case.  This week, at least, I don't have a lot going on and research projects are pretty portable.

And I talked to my brother, who is coming in down in 2 weeks when DH and I go to Vegas.  This trip was planned months ago--long before my mother's surgeries.  He is being sent to a convention by his employer.  We decided to take advantage of the subsidized airfare and hotel and fly in the weekend before for a quick getaway.  But right now this getaway is just causing more stress.

I kind of thought I would have to cancel when my mother's issues popped up--but then my brother mentioned that he was thinking of coming down that weekend.  I talked him into watching my kids in exchange for gas and groceries, and it seemed too perfect not to go forward.  Someone will be here if anything comes with out mother, and I still get to take my already paid for trip.

But he will have his 4 plus my 3 girls to deal with--ages 15, 14, 13(2), 10(2) and 8.    The good news is that he teaches middle school, so he is used to dealing with lots of screaming teenagers--and all of out kids are pretty easy to deal with. But I may have to send him on his own trip to Vegas after that!