Our itinerary for the rest of the trip was four days in Nashville, TN exploring the sites, three days in Evansville, IN visiting friends, and then on to my brother's house in the South Bend, IN area. Unfortunately, there was a change in plans.
My mother noticed before she left Florida that her foot had dropped. This is a condition where the motor nerve (anterior tibial nerve) that innervates the muscles that pull the foot toward the knee is injured or diseased, and the result is complete weakness of those muscles The defect causes the foot to mostly be limp, and the weak foot involuntarily flops away from the body to produce what is referred to as a "foot drop."
Connie got a brace to wear on her foot, had an MRI of her back done, and off she went on vacation. In Mt. Carmel, IN, she had some work done via a massage therapist and a chiropractor. Two days later, she was in such pain that she had to go to the ER for a shot of painkiller for some relief. She insisted on going to Nashville the following day with my SIL and her children.
We made it to Nashville, and I got to see the city of Nashville while following the back of the ambulance as it took Connie to Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
No sooner had we arrived at our Wyndham, then Connie was on the ground crying. The ambulance was summoned, and at Vanderbilt, she was given more pain medication, another MRI, and sent home with a steroid pack. By the next morning, we were frantically packing our belongings and heading back into the car for Evansville because we knew the hospitals and the area.
Connie rode in the backseat of Juanita's car. Susan and the kids and I followed in Connie's car, frantically using Onstar to find help. Kelly called her doctor father, who called us and gave us the name of a neurosurgeon he recommended. He sent us to St. Mary's Hospital and said to spout his name, although he wasn't sure what good would come of it.
My friend Robin met us at the ER. Susan took the kids to her parents and Juanita drove home while Robin and I dealt with the ER. Connie had another MRI, which showed a cyst tangled in the nerves between the L4 and the L5 of her spine.
Connie chose to have the operation to remove the cyst as the pain was so bad she was unable to walk to the bathroom. Because she was on a blood thinner, she had to go off of that medication and wait five days before they could operate. She was in the hospital up until the operation. The girls and I stayed at Robin's house.
The operation went well. The cyst was utterly void of liquid and hard and gunky and completely tangled in and around the nerves. The doctor scraped out the cyst and straightened one of the nerves that had gone flat. The operation was three hours long, with a two-hour recovery. By the third hour, she was back in her room and on her feet walking the corridor of the hospital. She was released the next evening.
Connie was unable to ride in a car for a long period of time so the trip to my brother's house was cancelled. Susan and her two kids stayed with us in a hotel for the week. We tried to keep busy with various activities and outings such as bowling and the zoo.
Five days later, Connie returned to the doctor, had her stitches removed, and got the okay to head home to Florida. We left that day.
Not the vacation we were expecting, but we were together, and in the end, all turned out well.
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