[The Weekly Update is an email that was started in the fall of 2010 to keep family and friends informed of my medical condition and has continued as a review of family activities. Written by Zelma and edited by Steve. Working on adding past issues to the blog.]
Hi All,
I'll just start the note by saying all is fine with GJ.
We did have some anxious moments on New Year's Eve afternoon. It was a reasonably decent day (by Rochester standards) and we had decided to go and do a little "girl's afternoon out" browsing at the mall. Our outing was quickly cut short when GJ lost her balance getting on the escalator at Macy's and fell backwards striking her head. It was just like you see in the movies where it seems like everything was moving in slow motion but probably happened in a matter of seconds.
Someone got the escalator stopped and we were fortunate to have two people there almost immediately that knew how to assess the situation and what to do (a former EMT and a nurse). They made sure her head and neck were stabilized and started through the first response triage list and waited with her on the escalator until the EMT's and ambulance arrived. Because there was a chance of neck / spinal injury - she had to be placed on a backboard with neck collar for transfer to the emergency room.
Given how long things can sometimes be, it was a reasonably short stay in emergency (a little over 4 hours). They ran a series of tests to make sure nothing was damaged during the fall and confirmed there were not any other medical related issues.
We picked up Matthew on the way home so that he could stay at GJ's house overnight and we had our New's Year's Eve pizza party. We are very fortunate that we can joke about having our mother-daughter bonding time at the ER instead of the mall.
Steve and I did finish our 2013 riding goal - making 3,800 miles for the year and 9,000 total miles since Steve's surgery. We are wearing the new jersey's we got for Christmas from Becky and Roger in the photo.
Miles for the week are 92, miles for 2014 are 63 and total miles are 9,063. Guess our next milestone will be 10K! :-)
Looking forward to a great 2014.
Take care,
Zelma