Russ, Faye and I came down on 3/25 to visit Mom, Dad and Cathy. When we arrived, Cathy told us that Mom had fallen Saturday morning and broken her hip. On Sunday, we went over to the hospital after mass, and a resident (or intern) was speaking with Mom. She told us that Mom had not broken her hip, but had two fractures in her pelvis, which I guess is better than the hip. However, because Mom's bones don't have a lot of mass, the breaks don't show up well on x-ray, and though they did a CT scan, they would also do an MRI to make sure they had captured everything. Mom was resting okay, but needs morphine for the pain. We left to go to Faye's birthday party at the bowling alley.

First, we picked up Dad, who was very happy to see us, and was telling the nurse about us. When I told him Mom had fallen and was in the hospital, it confused him, and he said, "No, she was walking around here."

At the bowling alley, we had a great time with Rick, Beth, Yenna, Aida, Katherine, Ellie, Suzie and Jacob. (For the record, Cathy beat Jennie once, and Jennie beat Cathy once.) Cathy made a fabulous cake for Faye with green icing and plastic geckos. Faye enjoyed bowling with her cousins and telling everyone about her pets. Dad also enjoyed the outing, and sat right up front analyzing everyone's technique. He was quite good at that. We all had pizza and drinks in addition to cake and ice cream.

After the party, we went back to the hospital. Mom was watching the tv, but was under the morphine influence, I think, with a little confusion. Also, she had not eaten much, if any lunch. They brought her dinner, and she didn't want to eat any of that, but drank the milk when I offered it. Shortly after, they came to take her to the MRI, and I got them to give her more meds first, as she was saying she needed more. She was very worried about the transfer to the gurney, but said it was not as painful as the last time.

We went back to Mom's house, and we cooked a quick dinner of spaghetti, bread and salad. Dad ate well, but complained that we should not have had salad with spaghetti, but something else like beans. While still at the table, we somehow got on the topic of when Dad was on the U.S.S. Northhampton and it was hit by torpedoes and he ended up in the water. He talked about it a bit, said he had not been in the water too much, maybe 6 hours or so, using inflation devices (not rafts - except for the injured). About 100 men died. I asked him where he was when they got hit, and he said "the highest point in the ship - the foremast." He was working with radar, etc. at the time, he said.

Jason joined us for dinner, and he, Russ, and Faye went off to play in the computer room. Jason said he also does some work with the AutoCAD like Russ. Dad and I played cribbage, and he was beating me until Russ came to give him advice (Dad seems to want advice if someone else is standing there, otherwise he just does it himself). After Russ left, Dad was able to come from behind and beat me. HA! When Cathy said she needed to take him back to the living center, he didn't want to leave, and asked why he couldn't just sleep here. Cathy told him they had his medicine, and we assured him that he needed to take it, so then he left with her.

Love, Jennie