Mom’s Fall: A Fracture, A Frustration, and A Daughter’s Fight Against the System
It was a normal Monday morning, the kind of day when you’d expect nothing much to happen. But then Mom fell. She was able to get herself up, steady her breath, and called my sister, who rushed over. Mom said she’d just lost her balance, nothing dramatic. A small slip and a heavy thud onto her right elbow, the one that keeps her steady, the one that makes her coffee and holds her cane. My sister inspected the elbow. It was swollen but still mobile. We thought we were lucky, no loud crack, no obvious deformity.
So we called the doctor and they suggested an X-ray, I remember thinking “Good, lets just make sure nothing’s broken”. An hour later, the results were up on the patient portal, blinking in cold, clinical language: “minimally displaced fracture”. It sounded almost gentle, “minimally displaced”, like the bone was just a little out of sorts but still had its wits about it.
The minimally displaced part is kind of a good thing, although non displaced would be even better. Minimally displaced means the bone hasn’t wandered off into dangerous territory, hasn’t shifted far enough to threaten nerves or arteries. But then I clicked on the X-ray, and there it was, staring back at me, Mom’s fragile bones, and the break that, in black and white, was much bigger than the word “minimal” implied.
I know this anatomy. I’ve worked with broken bones, dislocated joints, torn tendons for years. I’m a physical therapist. And this fracture was sitting dangerously close to the nerve, the same nerve that makes you see stars when you bump your “funny bone.” Only, there’s nothing funny about a fracture like this. One wrong move, one weight-bearing stumble, and that piece of bone could shift and damage the nerves and blood vessels that are right there.
The Limitations of the Portal
And yet, the portal, the trusted patient portal, didn’t say a word about any of that. Just two simple instructions: put Mom’s arm in a sling, and see an orthopedic specialist. No warnings, no explanation of the risks, just two sentences that made it sound like any other sprain or bruise. I felt my fists clench as I stared at the screen.
What about the elderly patient who doesn’t have a daughter who knows anatomy? What about the family who doesn’t know what a “minimally displaced fracture” actually means? And how are they supposed to know that minimizing movement and keeping weight off the arm could be the difference between a smooth recovery and a serious complication?
If the portal is their only means of communication, shouldn’t it “communicate”?
I have a love-hate relationship with the patient portal, leaning heavily towards the latter. In theory, it’s a great idea: put all the information in one place, let families access it whenever they need to, cut down on endless phone tag. But the reality is much messier. It’s a screen that reduces complex medical care to bullet points and jargon, a convenient place for clinicians to check a box and say, “We’ve communicated,” without actually communicating anything that truly matters. It’s a conversation in name only, a way to pass information without the depth, context, or clarity that real communication requires.
And here’s the thing: Mom doesn’t even know how to access the portal. Most 90-year-olds don’t. She’s never going to log in and browse through her test results. I believe the doctors know this. They must know this. But they keep using the portal as if it's the end-all-be-all of communication, even for patients who barely use the internet to read the news.
The system must expect families to step in, to translate. I did. I logged in, sifted through the sparse notes, looked at the X-ray, and put the pieces together. But what about the families who don’t have a daughter who works in healthcare? What about the ones who don’t know human anatomy, or why “minimal displacement” could turn into a very big problem? There are families who will read “put the arm in a sling” and take it at face value, not realizing the potential dangers of moving a bone so close to fragile nerves.
Spell It Out, Or Pick Up the Phone
The portal could work, it should work, but only if it actually explains what’s at stake. If doctors are going to rely on the portal, they can’t assume we know what they know. They can’t expect us to understand the risks they aren’t spelling out. And if they’re going to use it to communicate important information, it needs to be in language we can understand, ALL of us, not just those of us with medical training.
I wanted to scream that at the doctor who thought two sentences were enough, the one who trusted the portal to fill in the gaps for my mom’s care. The portal didn’t tell us not to move her arm, didn’t explain why minimizing any weight on it was crucial. It didn’t tell us that one false move could have major consequences. They were expecting Mom to understand all that from a few lines of text. They were expecting us to know.
And maybe that’s one of the biggest problems with the healthcare system we have now. it expects too much from the people who understand the least, and not nearly enough from the professionals who are supposed to be guiding us. Families don’t need a screen full of technical jargon and data points. They need a human being. A real conversation. Someone who will take the time to look them in the eye and explain what an X-ray actually means, what they should expect, and what they should be careful of. If we can’t get that kind of conversation, then the least they can do is make sure the portal includes everything we need to know, in plain, everyday language that makes sense to everyone. Families deserve more than a list of bullet points; they deserve clarity and understanding. If the quality of healthcare is going to keep declining, then we need the information to do what we can for our aging parents. Because without that, we’re left to navigate the dark on our own.
So, that’s where we are now. Standing in the gap between a broken system and the people we love, holding our flashlights against the darkness, refusing to accept that this is as good as it gets. I don’t have much faith that the healthcare system is going to transform, but I do know that we can do better.
We can push back. We can demand clarity. We can challenge the vague and the technical until it makes sense. We can insist that doctors don’t hide behind a patient portal and call that communication. And if we can’t get a conversation, we’ll ask for clear, plain-spoken details that actually mean something.
Because our aging parents deserve better. They deserve care that doesn't make them feel like a line on a medical chart or a click on a portal. They deserve to understand what’s happening to their bodies, to be guided through their recoveries, not left wondering if they’ve missed some crucial piece of the puzzle buried in a sea of medical jargon.
Maybe the system won't change, but we can. We can be relentless advocates for our parents, armed with information, clarity, and a determination to get real answers. We don’t have to settle for vague instructions or incomplete notes. We don’t have to navigate the dark alone. And if the healthcare system won’t light the way, then we’ll be the ones to do it, together, as families, fighting for the care that should have been there all along.
Because they deserve nothing less.
