Dad and I started the day with mom bright and early (5:15 a.m.)! Mom was awake and happy and alert. Her CNA said that mom slept well last night---through the night!!! Mom wanted to know why dad was here so early and she also wanted to know why she can’t go home and use her own toilet. Mom also was upset because she wanted to get herself washed and she said she needed to wash her hair!!! This is all a first!! Wow! Mom also asked me what notes I am writing on the computer all the time when I am with her. I told her about the blog and the emails I send to everyone about her day. We called Claudia and mom spoke to her. Mom wanted to know why she can’t go home and she told Claudia we are keeping her prisoner here! She was joking. She is continuing to insist that she wants to go home. She asked me how long she has been here and why. She couldn’t believe the story about what happened to her. We kept telling her about using the bed pan and mom kept telling us she wanted to take the bed pan to the bathroom!! She wants that bathroom and home badly! These will be her motivators! Haha!
The transport vehicle was LATE!!! Supposed to be here at 6 a.m. but arrived at 7 a.m.!!! Exasperating. They were downstairs waiting at the door for us to come down and the people up here were waiting for the transport people to come up….no communication!!! To boot, it was raining…rain, expressway rush hour, late…nice start! Hahaha! I put it all in the Hands of God in the morning though, so if we were late, maybe we avoided a possible accident or mishap, who knows?
Thankfully, we all made it there by 8:20. Mom was scheduled for an 8:30 procedure. Another mistake…mom should have been transported on a guerney this time because of the procedure—not a wheelchair. The hospital had to find people to lift mom manually (like the old days) to move her from the chair to the bed. The anesthesiologist came to see us and then the doctor. The doctor was a very nice person. The doctor said that it is standard to recheck a coil after 1 – 1 ½ years after it is initially put in. The recheck is to see if there is further bleeding of any kind. It is common to have the site of an aneurysm reopen to some degree within a year or so. Initially, one year ago, when mom had the aneurysm burst, she had a 45% chance of survival. Mom is a miracle. The doctor said that they will be taking pictures of BOTH sides of mom’s brain today since her initial injury was in the direct center of her forehead. The doctor said that if the injury was on one side or another, pictures would be taken of only one side and damage from the initial injury would be on one side only. Mom, technically, could have suffered injury on both sides of her body…but she didn’t. Her weakness is only on the left side. The doctor said that, initially, mom’s injury was extensive---it had been an extensive bleed…with significant amounts of blood loss and collection on the brain. Mom is a miracle. Depending upon what they see today, mom will go home and follow up in a year with an MRA from here on in. If, God forbid, there is any bleeding from the site, the neurosurgeon will decide how to follow up. Before mom left for the procedure, we met both the anesthesiologist and the neurosurgeon who put the coil in last year. The surgeon assessed mom, asking her to move both legs and toes, and arms, fingers…asked her to smile, stick out her tongue. The doctor asked her who I was and she said, “My daughter” (I was demoted back to a daughter---she used to say I was her mother!!). When the doctor asked what my name was, mom said, “Katherine” kidding around and when he asked who dad is, mom said, “I never saw that man before in my life” and laughed!!! She joked the whole way into the procedure. Dad and I are in the waiting room now.
The doctor said that the procedure went well. There is a spot at the base of the original aneurism that has no coil in it. The aneurism itself has a coil in it that stopped the bleeding last year and formed a rock solid scab in the aneurism. At the base of the aneurism where it meets mom’s blood vessel (this is called the NECK) there is a very small spot with no coil. This spot will, over time, also heal into a hard scab. Mom will need only an MRA in 1 – 1 ½ years from now. We saw mom in the OR and also in the recovery room and she looked great and spoke to us and answered questions. She will have to eat and drink and urinate before leaving. Mom still has a urinary tract infection but the surgeons said that, given extent of the colonization, it is apparent that this type of infection is something that is just typical for mom---something that leaves her asymptomatic and fine. Therefore, no treatment is necessary.
Dad and I went downstairs to have lunch and we saw the neurosurgeon who treated mom last year and this year with the shunt. The surgeon wanted a full update on mom and when we told of how wonderful mom is doing, the surgeon said to bring mom upstairs to the NSCU asap so everyone could see her and how great she is doing. We ended up not being able to go upstairs today though because the transport people were an hour early!!! Mom joked and joked and joked and laughed in the recovery room. We had so much fun! Dad rode back to the facility with mom in the ambulette and I followed.
When we got back to the facility, we found that the huge thick mats were gone and some small, long mats were attached to the sides of mom’s bed instead. On the floor, were the long thin mats again. The CNA came to put mom on the bed pan and left her there to give someone else a shower!! Ouch!! I took mom off the pan. Then the bed alarm was broken…but they fixed it. Jean came to be with mom tonight followed by Claudia later and dad and I left. As we left, we told mom we were leaving for upstate---mom called us bums and finks because we were going upstate without her. She is very aware now. This is the first time she complained that she couldn’t go with us.
BUT……..life was too calm obviously….just as I was about to hop into the shower and relax in bed, Claudia called to say: MOM PULLED HER FEEDING TUBE OUT!!!! Dad, Lenny and I ran to the facility (we were supposed to be on our way upstate but were waiting until morning because of tornadoes upstate) --- little did we know that we’d have our own tornado here! Hahah! The nurses at the facility quickly put the feeding tube back in. When I voiced my concern with just leaving mom at the facility and not sending her to the hospital, I was told that the gastro system is not connected to the groin area (I expressed my concern over this trauma in the immediate wake of the cerebral angiogram)---no really? (Pardon my sarcasm…I am tired…it’s 10 p.m. now). I was trying to say that mom was supposed to be kept calm, quiet…relaxed…after the procedure today and for the next 24 hours. We went back into mom’s room and found that after the 4th attempt on the bed pan…mom missed again and
urinated all over the bed and linens. It’s maddening. We told the CNAs that the bed was saturated(and to take bed pans 101 again---only kidding!) and saw that mom’s new feeding tube was left open at the end so the bile from her stomach was spilling all over her abdomen and down into the groin area----a little unsterile to say the least. She was finally cleaned up and sent to the local hospital for an x-ray to see if the tube was in place or not. The tube may come out for keeps on Friday anyway—when I called the facility to say this—no one answered the phone. The end result was a trip to the hospital. The EMTs recognized mom and couldn’t believe the change in her!!! Mom became nauseas and had developed a bad headache by the time we reached the hospital --- BP was 140 over 76…no one was concerned though.
I forgot to mention that, out of the blue today, mom asked me, “Hey, where are my earrings and rings? Who has them?” I gave her earrings to Sammy, and her rings to Terry, Ava and Claudia to hold until mom got better.
Dad and Lenny went to sleep in the waiting room. Claudia and I stayed with mom. They came to the gurney to x-ray mom and at about 11:10 p.m. the nurse said all looked good, but a doctor had to approve it before she gets discharged. Who knows if we will go upstate tomorrow or not. Thank God mom is OK but she complained of a headache and nausea until she fell asleep…she had none of this before the feeding tube came out. Long day.Dad and I left at 11:30 and Claudia and Lenny stayed with mom until she got back to the facility.
"May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy..." Colossians 1:11
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