2 posts tagged “surgery”

Saturday:
    Mom and sister discussed what to do about infection and decided to call doctor's exchange. Doc said since it is an incision do not take chances go to ER, Mom goes to ER they admit her for antibiotics via IV

Sunday - Monday:
    Partner Dr. of her neurosurgeon(her is out of town)  comes to assess situation. He has her sent for CAT scan to check for fluid build up.  Scan reveals fluid build up. Partner says that if he was to decide he would take her back into surgery and clean up wound. Partner Dr. confers with Mom's Dr.. Mom's Dr. calls her and tells her that he agrees with Partners assessment and plans to do Surgery first things Tuesday morning (he cancels other scheduled surgeries to be able to do this).
    Hospital's Infectious Disease Specialist visits Mom and asks questions about her discharge instructions (basically she was not given any), asks if was taking antibiotics after being sent home (Mom says no she was only given pain meds). IDS explains a little more about what was done during initial surgery including something about some packing being used for when Neuro nicked disc. (not positive how accurate this info is because I am getting it second and third hand). IDS also tells Mom that she may need IV antibiotics for 6 weeks after this new surgery, and then possibly pills for rest of life. (I think this is supposed to be severe case possibility).
    Some time during all of this they indicate to Mom that she is probably to fault because of not cleaning wound properly at home (Remember no wound care instructions given at discharge) (I am not happy with the sounds of this)

Tuesday:
    Mom has surgery at 8:30 am. As is typical Dad forgets to call me later to let me know surgery is over and Mom is in new room. I have to call him and find this out.
    Mom is told by doctor's that infection was only in the skin not inside the wound. She is also told that after stay in hospital she will have to be on IV antibiotics for 4 while at home. (I am curious why she would need such extensive amounts of IV antibiotics for only skin infection, when they did not even send her home with pill antibiotics after first surgery)

As of Tuesday night, Mom is in room had dinner (soup and juice and pudding and such). She is on IV antibiotics and pain meds, but doing okay.

I will be heading in to see Mom today while I am in doing Union paperwork, I will also be going over to clean Mom's bathroom thoroughly and replace shower curtain on bath window, because she is worried that some how she may have gotten bacteria on her  in there to cause infection (Mom has a clean bathroom, I do not believe this is what happened but I will do this for Mom).

I have told Mom and Dad both that just to be on the safe side they should keep track of everything they can remember being told to them and done or not done for Mom. I then think they should at least consult a malpractice lawyer. Mom and Dad can not afford a second surgery and visiting home nurse care for the IV antibiotics.  Maybe when I hear more of the information directly from Mom and Dad and not just over the phone, maybe I will feel differently.

more on mom later

My Mom had to have surgery on her back yesterday morning. I had not mentioned it until now party because I was not posting and partly because when I did post I wanted to keep that to myself for a little while longer.

My Mom has been in a lot of pain for the last year or more. She has been going to the doctor about it and at first they just put her on muscle relaxers thinking it was just a pulled muscle, but they only gave her a minimal amount of relief. She also has been going to a chiropractor for a while now to see if that would help, again it only gave her a minimal amount of relief, but never totally making it go away.

After over a year of constant increasing pain with less and less mobility she was finally referred to a neurosurgeon. With the use of MRI's the neurologist was able to detect that there was a small cyst inside my mother's spinal column. There is a medical term for the problem but I do not remember it off the top of my head, oh wait it just occurred to me, spinal stenosis. That is when he told her that she was going to need surgery. At first she was not too sure that she was ready to consider that option, but after looking up more information about the  problem and the surgery to help, plus the intense pain, helped her to decide to have the surgery done.

Because the problem is in the lower lumbar area of her spine the surgery has much less risk and possible complication, than higher up on the spine would have. That is not to say there are no risk or complications just much less.

As seems to be normal for my family if there are complications we will find them, whether we want to or not. Mom's surgery went well for the most part but there was some kind of minor complication that will require a couple more days of hospital bed rest and supervision to make sure she is healing properly before discharging her. If the surgery had gone super well she would have been discharged in one day, but now it looks like the will keep her there for a couple extra days.

She seems to be doing okay and in good spirits for someone that has to stay totally flat in bed. I think I would go stir crazy in no time if I was required to lay  totally flat for more that just one day, heck one day would be hard for me, I just do not like laying flat on my back. I am a side sleeper for the most part. I guess if I was in the pain she had been in I would think differently.

Tomorrow I will go back in to see her and then go over to Mom and Dad's house to do a few things for her since she has not been able to and Dad is in no way a house keeping kind of person.

I decided I am going to cook up a couple of different dinners so that Dad will have some left overs to eat for a few days instead of going out or eating boxed dinners. Mom mentioned to my sister that she would like to have the sheets changed on her bed for when she gets home, so either my sister or I will get that done for her. And I think I will also try to help with some of the laundry (again another chore Dad is not very effective at).

I already went over to their house after visiting with Mom, and made some sweet potatoes for Dad. A friend of mine gave me at least 3 lbs of sweet potatoes that she had a surplus of, because the food pantry gave them to her. I like sweet potatoes but I would never eat them all up before they went bad so I decided to take them in and make them up for Dad so that he could have a treat.