Mom is back in the hospital

She had her hip replaced the week before Christmas and got out of the hospital the day before Christmas. At the time they knew there was a small fracture in that hip - they saw it on xray. Mom heard her hip "clicking" yesterday and called the hospital who told her if it got worse to come in. At noon yesterday she tried to get up (she has a lift chair) and couldn't. She ended up calling 911 and being taken in via ambulance to the ER. Her orthopedic surgeon is at the Rose Bowl, so another surgeon looked at her. He was going to send her home! My mother refused because she knew something was wrong, so he sent for another orthopedic. The second one said "Yup, something's wrong" and called mom's surgeon. Apparently the little break is now a bigger break. Mom's doc said "You can go home, or better yet stay in the hospital. I'll be back on Monday, we'll do surgery on Tuesday." So she's in the hospital until then, and Tuesday she probably gets a pin put in her hip bone. After that, dad wants to put her in a nursing home for a few weeks for rehab. Mom is less than stellarly pleased about this...just the idea of being put in a "nursing home" is enough to depress her. If it had another name, perhaps it would be better. She's always hated the idea of not being able to take care of herself.

My dad is stressed to the max. He actually sounds stressed, which is unusual for him. He's one of the calmest people I know. However, he's been getting up at 4am to go to work and not getting home until at least 8pm. Then he has to catch up on laundry and dishes and eat, and it's almost 10pm before he gets to sleep. He's getting about 5 hours of sleep a night. The man is almost 60 - he shouldn't be working these kinds of hours. What happens if he has a heart attack? He's at that age, and even though he's really healthy it could still happen. He won't be able to take care of mom, she won't be able to take care of him. I can't go down there to take care of them...not without quitting school, taking semi-permanent leave from my work, and running the risk of bankrupting us without my income. My sister can't come up here - she's got 2 kids. We won't even discuss my brother - he's still in Lovelock, so far as I know, and even if he weren't there's no way in hell I'd trust him to take care of them properly.

What am I going to do? I feel so guilty for not being there for my parents. I should be there, dammit. They're my parents. Next to Aaron, they're all I've got. This is not a good way to start the new year. OH! Speaking of which:

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!