Life takes an unexpected turn...

My mother, aged 98, struggles to regain her strength after health setbacks

Dear Friends, I have been very preoccupied away from our reform work and writing for the last seven weeks. My 98-year-old mother Jean Ross fell in mid-January, and we have been helping her with the cascade of events since then.

Mom has lived with us since 2017 and has been an integral part of the family, and our biggest fan. She eventually had to begin using a walker, but despite mobility, vision and hearing issues she has been healthy and enjoying life. Up until the accident, she was intellectually sharp and fully engaged with us as a part of our 3-person ‘war room.’ She would comment on our writing, listen to our radio shows, follow the news and discuss current events.

After her fall in January, she went to the hospital due to weakness and high blood pressure. That began a series of events that have been exhausting and confusing for her, and very stressful on us. Just when we thought she was recovering, she contracted an infection in the hospital and is just recovering now in a specialized nursing and rehabilitation facility.

Her recovery has been slowed down by a remarkable series of medical errors and misplaced priorities that have made the decline of American medicine painfully obvious to us. As we gain greater perspective on this we will be writing and speaking about it. In short, we found that most of the personnel we dealt with were sincerely trying to help but vastly hamstrung by the goals set from Washington, D.C.

Mom has not returned home since she fell and we don’t believe she will be able to return home with us in the future due to her increasing physical needs.

Mom is “medically stable” now but is extremely weak, confused, and blind. She needs skilled nursing care with help eating and with her other daily tasks. We have found a small and home-like nursing facility where both staff and residents are bright-eyed and alert and caring. Mom has lived a very responsible life and made sure that she, herself, can pay for her care.

Peter and I are looking after each other and looking after Mom as we try to stay ahead of our office basics and to be present for Peter’s patients and for our wonderful radio audience and our readers. We will now be once again keeping up with you. In fact, we have an exciting amount of material to continue sharing over the next few months.

Thank you as always for reading our Substack, for listening to our weekly radio show, and for sharing our work.

Primary author: Ginger Breggin