Driving to see Miss Dulcie!

So.....at 8.00am this morning we were awakened by a phone call. It was Dulcie. She had had a fall but Danny was there with her and was sorting things out.We had a quick breakfast and started packing up. Wendi rang with a bit more information. It seems she had got up to go to the loo and had put her hand out to lean on the bedroom door beside the toilet and it swung open and she went down. Danny had taken her to hospital.We headed back to Brisbane.Wendi rang again just before we arrived in Brisbane. Dulcie had had an x-ray and they could not see any broken bones on it but they had sent her for a scan as well and they were waiting for the results of the scan.Just after we arrived back at Celtis St, Joanne, next door, came out, while we were unpacking the car, to see if we had any news.We told her what Wendi had said about the x-ray. Joanne told us that she had fallen at about 3.00am and she hadn't phoned her and Danny until 7.00am this morning."Why didn't she ring me earlier?" she said.She said that she didn't want Danny to phone for an ambulance but she said that Danny and her had found it really difficult to get Dulcie dressed without causing her pain . In the end Danny just rang for an ambulance and  got her to the hospital. Just after we got in the house Wendi rang again. The scan had shown a compacted fracture of her left upper leg. She was going to have to have surgery but not until tomorrow.Will rang Danny and he was on his way back to Celtis St to get her some things.When he came he said she was sitting in her chair when had arrived in the morning and Joanne was with her. He told us that she had wanted to go to her doctor rather than the hospital. He told us how hard it had been to get her to the bedroom to get her dressed and she had wanted him to help her get down the steps. He just rang an ambulance. He said he had left her in Emergency but they were waiting to take her up to a ward.Danny had a list of things she wanted. We collected her nightly, medication, toothbrush and toothpaste and two different night creams.We went back with Danny to the hospital. She was still in Emergency waiting to go up to the ward. She had a drip in her arm and oxygen tubes in her nostrils and she looked so thin and frail."How are you darling?" she said to Will."Never mind me, how are you?" he said.She doesn't like hospitals...who does? She had only ever stayed in hospital before when she had had her children. The thought of the operation was obviously worrying her. She said that she had never had so much pain.After she fell she crawled back to her bed and climbed in and lay awake from 3 until 7 before she rang Danny and Joanne. She had hobbled from her bed to the phone using a walking stick...with a compacted  fracture!The Emergency Department looked brand new and was very modern. The staff we saw were lovely. Dulcie said they had been very good and that the 'boys' in the ambulance had been lovely.Eventually the porter came and wheeled her up to the ward. We followed behind.They put her in a room of her own and we went and waited in a waiting area until they had sorted her out then we were allowed into see her again.They gave her some painkillers to help with the pain but as she is already on her strong morphine patches for her back it wasn't really working. In the end they gave her a shot of morphine.Danny had spoken with the nurse and said that it seemed that the surgeon would be in about 7.00 am in the morning. He said that apparently he was a surgeon at a private hospital but worked in this hospital pro bono and he is really good.The 'afternoon tea' woman came round."What would you like darlin'? Tea or coffee?""I'll have whatever is going?" said Dulcie, not wanting to be a problem."You can have tea or coffee," said the woman. She had tea, black with a little sugar.She didn't like being on her back. She said she had lain on her sore leg in the bed last night."I can't sleep on my back" she said.She didn't like the oxygen tubes in her nose or the plastic tags on her arm.It is going to be a difficult time for her for awhile and she is just going to have to do as she is told.The morphine shot was starting to take effect and she said the pain was easing finally. We left her to get some rest but not before she had given me detailed instructions on watering under the house at the front and down the sides because of the black soil which can crack and cause the house to sink and which plants needed some water.Even from her hospital bed she has me under control! I don't care...I did it as soon as I got back.We are to ring back at 9.00 in the morning and we will take it from there.