Oh, boy. Mom fell in the bathroom on Thursday and broke her hip, I’m not sure which one. She is in the hospital and is due to have surgery today. The X-rays did not tell the doctors enough to know what needs to be done; she’ll either just have to have some metal pins installed to facillitate healing or they’ll replace the joint entirely with an artificial one. Could someone please tell me what she may be facing in terms of recovery, therapy and current and future expenses? She turns 65 in August and is overweight and diabetic. She’s on Social Security and yet does not have either Medicare or Medicaid and I’m not sure why. Also, if you guys could write some get-well wishes here, I’ll print-out this thread and mail it to her.
Hip operations aren’t the big scary thing they used to be. I’m sure provided your mom has good post-op care, including physiotherapy, she’ll be fine. Please do pass on my best wishes, and hopes for a speedy recovery.
Jab, I hope your mother gets better. Hip operations and replacement are commonplace and recovery varies from person to person. My partner’s grandmother took about 12 weeks to recover from her operation and she was 86. Send your mother my best wishes and I hope she has a speedy recovery.
My back door neighbor who is also diabetic fell and broke her hip a few years ago - she was 79 at the time. She’s still up and at them, and probably healthier than I am due to her careful diet! That being said, best wishes for a speedy recovery to your mom!
To put your mind at ease a bit, it is amazing how effective these hip operations can be. My mom had one a few years back. Recovery was reasonably swift (I don’t recall the exact duration, but Necro’s 12 weeks sounds about right) and utterly troublefree. These days mom is zipping around – at 83 – like nothing happened. No limp, no pain, no restriction of movement.
The thing that roubles me about your post is the expenses business. Talk to the hospital rep about what options you have. They will have a department/person that deals with nothing but payment issues. They can walk you through what programs you mom might qualify for.
My mom was 80+ when she broke her hip. They replaced the top of the femur all the way to the socket, then threw her out of the hospital in two days. The nursing home where she went for recuperation discharged her after 13 days, and the doctor told her she could throw away her walker about six weeks after the surgery. I will not claim that it was painless, but my mom was not suffering throughout the recovery.
She is still up and moving at 87.
I’m afraid I can’t help with cost information. Your best bet would be to get hold of the county social services people, immediately, to see what can be done. (In fact, given her apparent lack of insurance and her age, she should have already had someone from either the hospital or the county already talking to her. Find out who it was and get the real info directly from them.)
Good luck to your mom and you. Tell her to get out of bed and walk as soon as she can (using the walker or cane as appropriate).
My grandmother broke her hip several times in her later years. It’s always so hard to see a loved one hurting. But 65 seems young enough for a full recovery. Best wishes for that.
My gf is answering this question. She’s a theatre nurse specialising in orthopaedic surgery, so can answer some of these questions. The usual disclaimers apply - she INAD etc.
If she’s just getting pins in her hip, she’ll probably be in hospital for four days or so. She’ll start physio the day immediately following the surgery. All things going well there, she’ll be out in three-four days. After seven days, she’ll return on an outpatient basis to have it reviewed and probably have stitches removed.
She’ll need to closely monitor her diet with respect to the diabetes because it can affect her wound recovery time and possibly cause wound breakdown.
She’ll need to continue with post-op physio to maintain mobility and use of the joint.
If it’s a joint replacement, however, post-op it’ll be essentially the same as for the pins but she’ll be in hospital longer (a few days longer), she’ll be on antibiotics, and as with the pins, she’ll need followup to monitor it and remove stitches. She may need more x-rays done.
Provided there’s no infections etc, she should be ok. She needs to continue doing the physio and all the other activities she would normally do in order to maintain use of the joint.
She can’t really comment on expenses post-op, but essentially she doesn’t need to visit a physiotherapist; simply she needs to continue doing the prescribed exercises.
I hope this is helpful - once again, she is not a doctor etc etc.
Thanks, everybody! The doctors totally replaced her left hip. She was out of the hospital last night. She’s doing fine, considering that she now has to be careful how she sleeps and uses the bathroom and the fact that she has staples up and down her entire hip. She’s getting around using a rented walker. She was told that her recovery ought to last about eight weeks. My two brothers are with her and are helping her out. (I’m in California; she’s in Texas.)
As for the expenses, the reason she doesn’t have Medicare or Medicaid is because she is not disabled and her Social Security income is too high for her to qualify for county assistance. But she told me I shouldn’t worry because the hospital she went to has to accept a certain number of charity cases to retain its accreditation and the hope is that she’ll be one of them. If not, she’ll pay what she can per month. As she reminded me, they can’t take her house from her and they can’t take her car since she doesn’t own one, so she’ll pay them back as quickly as she can afford to.
Thanks for all the info and the get-well messages!
Sending all my best wishes and love and hugs and prayers to your mom, honey.
I have considerable experience with this sort of thing, as I have pretty much sole responsibility for aged father and aunt. Aunt has had both her hips and both her knees replaced. Dad is going strong…so far. (Thank you God)
All I can say is, make sure she DOES HER THERAPY. And WATCHES HER DIET…diabetes is nothing to fool around with, and can really impede healing if a person isn’t dealing with it.
As far as the finances, talk to the hospital. They should have social workers who can help you sort out the best way to handle things. If your mom’s state doesn’t HAVE these people employed in the hospital, you might need to contact the state social system. Even if a person has SSI and stuff, sometimes when a person has a situation like this, Medicaid will help with a short-term medical coupon (welfare) depending on your person’s income. It is worth looking into. Most times, SSI isn’t enough to live on and still handle this kind of expense.
If your mom is living entirely on SSI, she probably needs some kind of assistance. It might not be easy for her to accept help, but most people of our parent’s generation would rather starve than not pay a bill. You need to make sure that she is not going without something she needs in order to pay this bill.
and don’t push it getting back on your feet!