Florence slipped in the bathroom Friday night and now has a non-displaced stress fracture of her greater trochanter. Call it a hip fracture that won’t require surgery.

Flo sat (laid, squirmed, shifted) in the emergency room from 11 AM until 8 PM when a room finally became available. That kind of torture would break a far younger soul, but not Flo who had the admitting nurse on her floor laughing so hard she wanted to work a double shift.

The list of intake questions were endless with some those you would expect: “Have you had an MI?” or “Do you have arthritis?” or “Have you had surgery?”

And those you might not:

“Does anyone threaten you or cause you to fear for your safety?”

“No.”

“What time do you go to bed?”

“Seven thirty?”

“Seven thirty?” Eileen, the admitting nurse, Diane and I all repeated in unison.

“Yes, seven thirty. The place is dead. After dinner they all go their rooms.”

“What if you offered them wine to join you?” Eileen asked

“I have Cream Sherry, a full bottle.”

“Do you have friends at Concord Park?”

“I call them acquaintances.”

Her room number at Emerson Hospital : 1-978-287-3908