Concerned Friends and Family of Linda Keaton-Medical Update #prayerseemstowork #StrongMind #Mother
This is my mom, Linda Keaton, on September 3, 2019 the day we were registering for her total reverse shoulder replacement overnight/outpatient surgery. This was it. The beginning of a recovery journey with a timeline that would ultimately lead to a better quality of life. We were ready for it and had prepared the home for our fast return and her then 24 hour care by us thereafter while shoulder healed. It was going to be tough but we were ready.
I snapped this picture of her as she was talking to someone else in the waiting area. She was so tired and weary on this morning having not slept a wink the night prior from the uncontrollable pain of having a fully separated shoulder, arthritis and bone spurs agitating it even more and no pain meds since the day prior, yet she's still smiling and wanting to be kind and social.
We couldn't have known when I took this picture that 20 days later we would still be in the hospital. There was no way to prepare for this in advance, as it came on literally in a flash making all plans of recovery put on the back burner and engaging a fierce will to live and blankets of comforting prayer as she fought through nights that seemed to me like I might wake up from my bedside station alone in the room with her spirit removed. She was so close. There were waves and waves of love and support keeping her aware that she was loved, needed, and relevant to life in the Keaton household. Me being scared to sleep, yet keeping her awake with my exhausted snores night after night, we were in the trenches together.
We have, day in and day out been together on this deal, me and mama, mama and me. Thankfully tag teaming with my sisters and nieces making sure all the right decisions were being made in real time, because there were times in these past twenty days that there wasn't a second to waste when it came to making decisions for her from the conversations I was having bedside with family member via text messages and we would all together come up with questions to ask the doctors when they had the few moments a day with your room # and allowing me to ramble, rant, and rage without a word from anyone...well once.
