After a long, fun weekend in Atlanta over the Labor Day holiday, we were only 20 miles from Donalsonville when we got the call. My mother had taken a nasty fall and had a compound fracture in her leg just above her ankle. The bone was sticking out through the skin and her foot was at a ninety degree angle in the wrong direction.

Amazingly she had dragged herself across the bedroom to the phone to call 911. Then she crawled through three rooms so she could unlock the front door before the paramedics arrived. Apparently she thought they might break the door down.

She was having surgery by that evening to restore the bones to their proper place. She has to wear an external contraption with pins and rods that keeps her ankle stable and prevents any movement. If I were a little boy, I would think it was something straight out of a torture scene in a horror movie.

She is now undergoing intensive therapy at a rehab hospital. There wasn’t any hesitation on her part. She knew she was going to have to work hard to get back on her feet. After a week of therapy, she will go back to the hospital for another surgery to put the rods and pins inside her leg permanently, followed by even more rehabilitation.

You can be my age and still learn things from your mama. She never complained about the pain or inconvenience. She was more worried if she had lipstick on when she was being wheeled into the operating room than about the outcome of the surgery. She made it through her first tough rounds of therapy with flying colors.

I am not that surprised. My mother has always been one of the most competitive people I know. She loves sports, walking, and working out and didn’t seem to dread the rehab sessions at all. I think she is competing with the other people who are there trying to deal with their own injuries.

She takes pride that the physical therapists compliment her on how good she is doing for an eighty year old woman. The truth is she is doing great for a person of any age.

“I am ready to get in that gym and starting getting well,” she said last week. She has no self-pity for herself.

Sometimes we heal our bodies with our minds. While my mother has had extraordinary care, I believe it is her attitude and mental toughness that will have her back at full speed before you know it.

She is showing all of us once again what I have known for a long, long time: She is one tough Mama.