strange incident

I visited with my brother at the nursing home on Saturday.  We went to play bingo, it was at the suggestion of the patient advocate.  As she was showing us the way, we came across a humongous patient, whose name was "Mama".  Mama looked like she weighed around 400+ lbs.  She seemed to come from the old country, she was dressed in various layers and had tons of jewelry on, including many with religious significance.  It was very hard to understand her speak, she had a heavy accent, spoke almost completely in Italian, and most of it was garbled.  But it seemed like everyone really liked her, and that she was a woman generous in spirit.  The patient advocate, Cathy, wheeled her with us and we approached the bingo room at the same time.

 We found about 20 patients, all elderly women with the exception of 1 man, sitting around several tables.  Almost all were in wheel chairs, several on oxygen.  The game was pretty mellow, if you won, you got a piece of candy or a cookie.  My brother played quietly and even won a game. Then of a sudden we heard a large crash and a scream, a big racket.  Mama had fallen out of her wheel chair, fortunately landing straight on her butt with her legs out in front of her.  She was quite upset.  There was only one staff in the room who immediately ran out to get help.  Help took the form of 2-3 very small (no more than 5'2") nurses aides who stood around and tried to figure out the protocol.  They were afraid to move her in case she was injured, and they sure weren't going to be able to lift her without more aid.

This was the biggest thing that had happened all day, maybe all week.  The ladies started clucking, making remarks about Mama luckily being cushioned by her size, how she must have leaned over for a bingo chip and tipped the cart, etc.  It was getting pretty chaotic, so I slipped out with my brother.

On the way back to his room, he got really tired, even though he was using oxygen, scarily so.  I thought I was going to have to have him sit on his walker, which has a seat.  I firmly grabbed him by his arm and held him up and he sank into his chair with relief when he got to his room.

This made me kind of anxious, and I woke up a lot that night, worrying about his congestive heart failure.  It seems very unlikely that he is going to be able to live independently anymore, even with assisted living.