My mother had an appointment to one of her doctors today for a possible procedure. As it happened, the location was just about an hour away from my workplace, and the appointment was, similarly, a little bit over an hour after I finished my shift (even accounting for some signout time). Hence, I decided to surprise my Mom by arriving there - she expected that I'd come straight home instead.
She walked into the building to find me standing there. It was certainly fun to see the look of surprise on her face, as well as some joy knowing that I cared about her appointment enough to come by.
The fun aspect aside, she's now a likely candidate for surgery, or alternatively, some less invasive procedures (injections) for her recent injury. I understood her rationale for not wanting to jump straight to surgery - being the most invasive option, it comes with the largest risks. Once we determined that this was the last option, I wanted her to move ahead with getting an injection (which is still invasive but less risky) so that she could recover faster.
Due to a very bad reaction to a prior, different injection, she was very hesitant to receive one this time, even though the components are completely different. I understand her hesitation, but there's also reason to get the injection: it's likely that without it, her improvement is going to be stalled.
She wanted to give it a little bit more time so she could read about the injection options and possibly try out exercises, then possibly go for the injections in a few weeks' time. This would have been very reasonable if she hadn't been getting worse over the course of 9 months... but this is what we ultimately agreed upon, and I certainly do hope that she'll be improving in the coming weeks. She's already suffered for such a long time, and I don't want to see it prolonged any further, but she's absolutely entitled to her choice.
Despite being a medical professional, that .gif represents about all I can really do from my end now. We'll see what happens.
