bearmom
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Looks like you already joined the losers bench by the time I read this, but so glad you came through with flying colors, and fingers crossed for a most uneventful recovery!
OldBroad is having surgery on Monday 4/6
- Thread starter DianaCox
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Barb1
Well-Known Member
I hope all is well for you Oldbroard! I also hope you have a boring and uneventful recovery! Welcome to the darkside and I scooted on down on the losers bench. It is a great and healthy place to be.
brooklyngirl
Yankee gone south
Another one I missed, happy to hear it went well!
She's being released after lunch! Picture perfect recovery so far! (I was in the hospital for three nights after my DS, and I was hanging on to my IV Demerol with a death grip, when they pried my fingers off of it!)
In the meantime, our Mom has become seriously ill. She lives in VA near OldBroad. 10 days ago, she was admitted to Fairfax Inova Hospital with a bowel obstruction and UTI. She was released to a rehab center in Fairfax on Friday, the obstruction having resolved. Last night, she was sent to Fair Oaks Inova Hospital with the bowel obstruction again. It is not resolving, and they have put in an NG tube to decompress her guts, and called for the surgeon in her Medicare HMO to review the situation.
In the meantime, as I did the last time (a year ago) when she had this bowel obstruction, I contacted Dr. Elariny to consult. His colleague reviewed her case last week, and has agreed (OldBroad spoke to him this morning about it) to check her out again today. Not that I don't trust the HMO surgeon (well, I don't), but I DO trust DrE, especially considering Mom's fragile medical condition (she is 83, T2D, CHF, HTN, etc., and barely mobile), and his laparoscopic skills. There may be a conflict here between the docs, but we'll sort that out later.
In the meantime, our Mom has become seriously ill. She lives in VA near OldBroad. 10 days ago, she was admitted to Fairfax Inova Hospital with a bowel obstruction and UTI. She was released to a rehab center in Fairfax on Friday, the obstruction having resolved. Last night, she was sent to Fair Oaks Inova Hospital with the bowel obstruction again. It is not resolving, and they have put in an NG tube to decompress her guts, and called for the surgeon in her Medicare HMO to review the situation.
In the meantime, as I did the last time (a year ago) when she had this bowel obstruction, I contacted Dr. Elariny to consult. His colleague reviewed her case last week, and has agreed (OldBroad spoke to him this morning about it) to check her out again today. Not that I don't trust the HMO surgeon (well, I don't), but I DO trust DrE, especially considering Mom's fragile medical condition (she is 83, T2D, CHF, HTN, etc., and barely mobile), and his laparoscopic skills. There may be a conflict here between the docs, but we'll sort that out later.
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Sorry to hear about your mom.
sorry to hear about your Mom, hope she gets better. glad to hear Old Broad is doing so well!
newanatomy
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I hope your Mom feels better soon. Glad to know your sister is progressing so well.
more2adore
Well-Known Member
Hope Dr. Elariny can help get her sorted soon!OK, it has been quite a night and day for me, my sister and Mom.
FIRST: OldBroad is home already (sheesh - only two nights - and here I was telling her to not expect to do as well as *I* did, because I was SO much (7+ years) younger when I had my DS, more in shape, and my BMI was "only" 49 when I had my DS - and she's showing me up pretty badly already.
Mom became progressively more ill overnight. By the morning, it was clear she needed surgery - and she is in very poor health to start with. But her white count was increasing, as well as lactic acid, which indicated her bowel was dying, and we had no choice. Mom was out of it, so the doctors were calling me - I managed to get OldBroad in on the call with the surgeon, and we discussed Mom's wishes, and what they could find and what the could/would do. It was horrible. They didn't know what the cause of the obstruction was, and it could have even been (due to her diabetes) ischemia caused by a blood clot in the main artery serving her guts, and that would pretty much be it for her. Mom turned 83 last week - she is quite frail, considering that she has been MO or SMO or SSMO most of her life - at some points in time, nearly if not more than 400 lbs. (She was also 5'11" in her prime - I am the family midget at 5'5".) Because of her obesity, she has been living for years with type 2 diabetes, congestive heart failure, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, cellulitis, and severe joint degeneration, as well as macular degeneration. (Yes, she was my dire warning that got me to the DS 12 years ago.)
But she's a tough old bird. After a desperate outreach to Dr. Elariny to tell him what was going on, and that I was worried the HMO my mother is getting her Medicare through was not going to have an in-network laparoscopic surgeon up to the task of doing surgery on our desperately ill mom, Dr.E reassured us that their surgeon was in fact excellent. So we agreed to give consent to the surgery, including intubation and colostomy if needed.
One glitch leading up to surgery (my sister might be reading this here for the first time, because I didn't tell her): there was some confusion regarding various messages left for the surgeon earlier in the morning, and he ended up calling me THREE TIMES after we gave our consent, including just before going into the OR to take care of her - he snipped at me that there was a message saying we had reconsidered (there was not!), and the OR nurse would not allow surgery to proceed until it was worked out - he started out by telling me with urgent annoyance that during the delay, Mom had started going downhill rapidly, and it was URGENT to get her into surgery right away - I was like - GET YOUR ASS IN THERE! And then repeated it for the OR nurse (who was just doing her job, of course).
Mom pulled through the surgery. She indeed had necrotic small bowel that required resection, which had been trapped in scar tissue/adhesions from prior surgeries (including a ventral hernia repair with mesh in 2007). But it was "only" six inches, and it had not perforated - on the other hand, there was so much scar tissue and mesh complicating the field, the surgeon had to convert to open. She has a new 6" incision, through the mesh.
The doctor initially told me she was sent to ICU on a ventilator, and probably would be on it until later tonight or tomorrow - OB and I had discussed that this was OK, and in fact Mom's PCP confirmed prior to the surgery that he had discussed with her (which she was still lucid and not in pain last Saturday) whether the DNR could be held in abeyance if she had to have surgery, and she had agreed.
Later this evening, I called ICU to see how she was doing, and was surprised to hear she had already been extubated, and was resting comfortably with morphine and NO oxygen! The ICU nurse said she was doing really well. Perhaps, when she recuperates, she will be better than she has been for a long time, as the source of her belly pain should be gone.
What a wild, emotional day. I will note without further comment for now that my adult daughter and my husband's adult daughter chose yesterday to have major crises as well that had to be dealt with. And I had multiple work issues to deal with today. I think this is going to require a glass of port before bed to wind down before bed, even though I only had about 3 hours of broken up sleep last night.
FIRST: OldBroad is home already (sheesh - only two nights - and here I was telling her to not expect to do as well as *I* did, because I was SO much (7+ years) younger when I had my DS, more in shape, and my BMI was "only" 49 when I had my DS - and she's showing me up pretty badly already.
Mom became progressively more ill overnight. By the morning, it was clear she needed surgery - and she is in very poor health to start with. But her white count was increasing, as well as lactic acid, which indicated her bowel was dying, and we had no choice. Mom was out of it, so the doctors were calling me - I managed to get OldBroad in on the call with the surgeon, and we discussed Mom's wishes, and what they could find and what the could/would do. It was horrible. They didn't know what the cause of the obstruction was, and it could have even been (due to her diabetes) ischemia caused by a blood clot in the main artery serving her guts, and that would pretty much be it for her. Mom turned 83 last week - she is quite frail, considering that she has been MO or SMO or SSMO most of her life - at some points in time, nearly if not more than 400 lbs. (She was also 5'11" in her prime - I am the family midget at 5'5".) Because of her obesity, she has been living for years with type 2 diabetes, congestive heart failure, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, cellulitis, and severe joint degeneration, as well as macular degeneration. (Yes, she was my dire warning that got me to the DS 12 years ago.)
But she's a tough old bird. After a desperate outreach to Dr. Elariny to tell him what was going on, and that I was worried the HMO my mother is getting her Medicare through was not going to have an in-network laparoscopic surgeon up to the task of doing surgery on our desperately ill mom, Dr.E reassured us that their surgeon was in fact excellent. So we agreed to give consent to the surgery, including intubation and colostomy if needed.
One glitch leading up to surgery (my sister might be reading this here for the first time, because I didn't tell her): there was some confusion regarding various messages left for the surgeon earlier in the morning, and he ended up calling me THREE TIMES after we gave our consent, including just before going into the OR to take care of her - he snipped at me that there was a message saying we had reconsidered (there was not!), and the OR nurse would not allow surgery to proceed until it was worked out - he started out by telling me with urgent annoyance that during the delay, Mom had started going downhill rapidly, and it was URGENT to get her into surgery right away - I was like - GET YOUR ASS IN THERE! And then repeated it for the OR nurse (who was just doing her job, of course).
Mom pulled through the surgery. She indeed had necrotic small bowel that required resection, which had been trapped in scar tissue/adhesions from prior surgeries (including a ventral hernia repair with mesh in 2007). But it was "only" six inches, and it had not perforated - on the other hand, there was so much scar tissue and mesh complicating the field, the surgeon had to convert to open. She has a new 6" incision, through the mesh.
The doctor initially told me she was sent to ICU on a ventilator, and probably would be on it until later tonight or tomorrow - OB and I had discussed that this was OK, and in fact Mom's PCP confirmed prior to the surgery that he had discussed with her (which she was still lucid and not in pain last Saturday) whether the DNR could be held in abeyance if she had to have surgery, and she had agreed.
Later this evening, I called ICU to see how she was doing, and was surprised to hear she had already been extubated, and was resting comfortably with morphine and NO oxygen! The ICU nurse said she was doing really well. Perhaps, when she recuperates, she will be better than she has been for a long time, as the source of her belly pain should be gone.
What a wild, emotional day. I will note without further comment for now that my adult daughter and my husband's adult daughter chose yesterday to have major crises as well that had to be dealt with. And I had multiple work issues to deal with today. I think this is going to require a glass of port before bed to wind down before bed, even though I only had about 3 hours of broken up sleep last night.
more2adore
Well-Known Member
Will2014
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- Joined
- Apr 2, 2014
- Messages
- 361
So glad all worked out well for both your sister and mother Diana! Man alive, when it rains it pours eh? Thank God they found the area of necrosis. So many times they labile geriatric patients as overly somatic and fail to do their due diligence like they should. Good thing you were available to get a competent Dr. involved.
Man, oh man...what a day you and your sister had. I am relieved to hear your mom is doing so well...
Hope you decided on the port!
Hope you decided on the port!
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