On the plus side, we all apparently survived the end of days

In an apparent effort to ensure that a member of our family has to visit the hospital at least once every two weeks, my 94-year-old grandmother fell, face first, down the fifteen (thankfully carpeted) stairs in her home early yesterday morning.  My uncle heard her fall and rushed down the stairs, where she was gushing blood from a nasty gash on her forehead, struggling to sit up, and frantically asking him if she had gotten any blood on the new wallpaper.  (She had not, in case you, like she, care about that at all: I, in case you were wondering, do not.)

I spent most of the day today at the hospital with her, where I was shocked at her battered appearance, although, I don't know why, since she fell down a flight of stairs - she's mostly black and blue, with two huge cuts on her forehead, as well as numerous smaller cuts on her face.  Her main injury is a broken shoulder bone, which was immediately operated on, because it was putting pressure on (or cutting off ? My uncle is not so good at communicating medical stuff) an artery.  She has various pins and screws holding the arm in place, and the artery was repaired by a graft, but she's in pretty tough shape.  Between her head injury and the pain meds, she wasn't completely on target while we were there - the nurses kept asking us if she was usually more lucid, and I said that she never takes more than an aspirin and she banged her head up pretty badly, so I thought she was doing pretty well, even if she did say "Bahama" was the president, and that we were in a library that she was afraid would be closing soon.  (Also: it is December 28th, 2012 - hence this post's title.)

They're talking about weeks of recovery - hospital and rehab - and this is her second go 'round with all of that, so hopefully it will all go as smoothly as it did last time.  I'm just glad she's doing as well as she is... it was pretty terrifying to read my uncle's e-mail ( I mentioned, about the not being good at communication, right?), and then seeing her today was pretty rough as well.  But tomorrow will hopefully be a little bit better, and we'll get this healing show on the road. 

After all, we have to be in fighting form for the apocalypse, right? 

PS - why do hospitals have to smell like that?  It is hideous.