Hike # 30: Hospital Hike...A Turning Point

Nothing makes you travel faster (by land, by air, by rail, or by car) than when your parents are in crisis. That is what precipitated Hike # 30: The Hospital Hike. This hike was not only a half way point to my 60 hike goal - it was transformative, reflective, hard, and life changing - for more than myself.

Mom fell on October 7th, after a simple dental cleaning. She tripped on a rise in a cement walkway - directly across the street from the hospital. Sadly, at 84 years old, that fall meant a broken humorous, a fractured nose, renal compromise due to shock, and anemia due to blood loss through extensive bruising. All of that ended my mother in the hospital for 7 days, only to graduate to skilled nursing care. All said... "It sucks to be old!" She would agree.

So, when I needed a break from the hospital care,  I decided to take a hike. A Hospital Hike! Around the perimeter of the hospital I went. I set Edomondo at the emergency room entrance. I charted my course around the hospital block and started on a hike that took me back to my teen age years.

I grew up in this area. It had changed since 1971, when I graduated from high school. I remember driving down Yorba Linda Boulevard in my 1968 black VW bug. While walking (hiking) past this particular strip mall (just around the corner from the hospital), I remembered hurriedly speeding down the road while in college, only to hit a cat, as it ran across the road. Skipping class, I spent hours searching bushes, and knocking on neighborhood doors, trying to find the cat.

That was a traumatic memory from my early college days. But it did not compare to the trauma I felt after seeing my black, and blue bruised, and broken mother in pain in the hospital bed. Nor did it compare to the overwhelming grief I felt as I  wheeled my father to visit her. It was at this moment that I realized that not only would their lives would never be the same, neither would mine.

This tragic fall, led me to take my 30th hike - a hike  that took something more than physical strength, and endurance - it took emotional fortitude, soul seeking, and a whole lot of other things I can't even describe.

Past the strip mall, to the corner. Down the west side of the hospital, I traveled, navigating various rock formations, raised cement, uneven walkways, and assorted other urban hazards. And then I found it. The exact place that my mother fell. It wasn't any higher than 3/4".

But this 3/4" took down a woman that was more stubborn than a mule, feistier than Scarlet O'Hara, and who had a child-like side that rivaled Willie Wonka. It was tragic for her, and  for all of us who knew it was only a matter of time. This was to be the end of  one phase of life and the beginning of another.

After the hike I knew, that I had to move my parents out of their home of 50+ years into a safer place. A place my mother would hate; but one that my father would accept. A place where one sibling would hold me in contempt; but the other would breathe a sigh of relief. A place that would only accept one of their three pets; but would mean finding a way for the others to visit. A place that would assure three meals a day, medicine management, social interaction, and everything a daughter would want for her aging parents; but would ultimately never be a home for them.

Lesson from the Hike # 30, the smallest event can change your  life forever - and sometimes that change isn't pleasant.

Endomondo Stats:
.85 miles
22 minutes
Life changing...and it sucked!