Centipede Assassin

A centipede nearly took out my mother! We've had quite a scare over the last few days. Mom's home from the hospital now, bruised and sore, but out of danger. Here's what happened.

My 85-year-old mother is not as spry as she once was, and taking Coumadin puts her at high-risk of serious injury in a fall. But when she spied a centipede on the rec room floor in the wee hours Wednesday morning, she made a quick move to capture it, and down she went. This resulted in a brain bleed and an emergency transport from our local emergency department to a tertiary care hospital. Always terrified of flying, my mother somehow "loved" this flight by miracle and good drugs!

When my sister and I arrived at her bedside a few hours later, I noticed a handwritten nurse note at the side of her bed documenting the cause of her fall - "STOMPED ON CENTIPEDE." My mother denies stomping on it. In fact, the critter is still at large.