(no subject)
Okay, I know I haven't been around, but lets be honest. It's not like people have cared all that much. No this isn't me trying to get people to say they care. Hell I don't even know if anyone will even see this at this point in time.
Earlier this year mom had to have another (her 9th one to date) surgery on her left knee. It had become infected AGAIN. They were able to save the leg and get the infection out while just replacing a very small piece where the hinge in her knee is at. We were told at the time that she would now be on aintbodies for the rest of her life to keep her from getting an infection again in that leg.
That had been fine and we dealt with it as another, welcome to the world of my mother's medical life. Then at the end of last month, August 26th, she had a check-up with the infectious disease doctor that is now handling her case. That was when we found out that not only had the staff infection she had earlier in the come back but it brought along a friend.
There had been a whole process of, we want to put her on this medcine by it conflicts with this one that deal with depression so while you dela with that here is this medcine to take. After talking with the doctor who prescribes the anitdepressant we were given the okay for her to come off of it so that they could get her on the medcine they wnated to put her on in the first place. It then took about a week to get the infectious doctor to say "stop taking that one pill and switch it the one we had really wanted you to go on."
The day after she was told that she ended up in the hospital because her left leg, can we just call it the bad one from now on and move on, had turned red and swelled to the point where there was no extra skin. We got her to the local hosiptal, not the one that the knee doctor can come to and visit and all that fun stuff, where we were told that she might have developed a third infection of the skin. Oh and that her sodium was down to 103. From there she was admitted for about 5 days. During that time we were able to get the reddness and swelling down and they think they figured out that her sodium was being effected by one of the dietabic medcines she was on. After a phone call to the dietabic doctor, he had wanted her to get some lab work done to see what her sodium was at because the week before it had been at 123, we were told that the medcine might be playing affecting her or it could be cancer. He had talked about wanting a CT scan done. I then informed him that the hospital had noticed that they would get her sodium up but that it would then crash after she took her medcine which was why they thought it was medcine. As for him wanting a CT scan done still or not I have no idea.
That though isn't the worse of the problems, or more pressing at this point. When she got out of the hospital she was told she could go back to work. She had one good day when nothing happened other then her being tired at the end of the day. That night as she was coming out of her closet she fell. She hadn't hit her head and it was possible that she slipped a newspaper by the door because she wasn't wearing any shoes/crocs at the time. No big deal other then I can't lift her by myself and no one else in the this house is allowed to lift anything over 50lbs. We got the ambualce to come and help get her up all without waking dad, a wanted thing for the simple fact that he doesn't sleep so well and he was going to work the next day.
Later that day while at work mom fell and this time she did hit her head. For the normal reason they wanted her to go to the hospital. Everything checked out. There was no head damage, and her hip looked fine. They took some x-rays, though not as much as they should have given just how bad that hinge is in her left leg, and said everything looked fine there. So as far as we knew she was good to go back to work on Monday since she was taking Friday off to see one of her two eye doctors.
After she got back from seeing the eye doctor she got a phone call from work telling her she couldn't come in till she had a doctor's note saying that everything was fine. Panic mood set in for about a minute till we tought about it and decided that it had to deal with the fact that she had hit her head. No big deal really we will just go see the primary doctor and get one.
Well it is a big deal. Turns out that they aren't talking about a doctor's note. They have put her on administrative leave not only for falling three time at work but aslo it seems she has been falling asleep at her desk. They want to know things that the doctos haven't even told us yet. Like what is the plan for this infection. There is a few possible outcomes. One is that they will be able to kill off the infection and there will be no missing work. Another is that they will have to go in flush out the infection which could mean she is out for about a month and half. The more likely, mainly since this has in fact happened at least three other times sincce she got the first knee replacement back in 2004, is that they will deem for her health they will have to take the leg. But we aren't going to know that till September 30th when she is seeing the knee doctor's PA, we couldn't even get in to see the doctor we have to see the PA and MAYBE they will have the doctor take a look at it.
They also want to know about all the other medical issues and then will decide if she can even come back to work. As for medical issues there is (and this is order of imporance right now) the leg, duh, her dietabetes, she has a heart issue that has been pasted down in the family, acid reflux, nerve demage because of the dietabetes, she can't really hold her bladder all that well, has a demaged lung from a emerancy heart surgery they had to do back '98 along with ashama, and is seeing a Rheumatologist. Her boss at first only gave her till Wesnesday to get this information together till he was told, in email form so it is on record, that her primary care works half a day on Wesnesday, wouldn't be in on Thursday, and takes Fridays off. Oh, he also sent the email informing of this on Monday evening after she had seen the doctor already and he had cleared her to go back to work. We didn't even get the informantion from her work till Tuesday.
At this point we have taking the notice to her primary doctor and he has said he will look it over and start working on it over the weekend. From what we can see they have realised that she wasn't given enough time and have the leave till the 7th. By then I'm hoping to at least know what the hell is going with her leg/infection issue.
To top this all off, mom doesn't want me to tell her sisters or anyone else in the family about what is going on. That in and of itself is just goign to make things so much harder if they decide that they need to remove the leg becuase they will then have to be informed about everything we have know about for almost a month and as you can see that is a lot of information.
Right now I just needed to get this stuff off my chest.
Earlier this year mom had to have another (her 9th one to date) surgery on her left knee. It had become infected AGAIN. They were able to save the leg and get the infection out while just replacing a very small piece where the hinge in her knee is at. We were told at the time that she would now be on aintbodies for the rest of her life to keep her from getting an infection again in that leg.
That had been fine and we dealt with it as another, welcome to the world of my mother's medical life. Then at the end of last month, August 26th, she had a check-up with the infectious disease doctor that is now handling her case. That was when we found out that not only had the staff infection she had earlier in the come back but it brought along a friend.
There had been a whole process of, we want to put her on this medcine by it conflicts with this one that deal with depression so while you dela with that here is this medcine to take. After talking with the doctor who prescribes the anitdepressant we were given the okay for her to come off of it so that they could get her on the medcine they wnated to put her on in the first place. It then took about a week to get the infectious doctor to say "stop taking that one pill and switch it the one we had really wanted you to go on."
The day after she was told that she ended up in the hospital because her left leg, can we just call it the bad one from now on and move on, had turned red and swelled to the point where there was no extra skin. We got her to the local hosiptal, not the one that the knee doctor can come to and visit and all that fun stuff, where we were told that she might have developed a third infection of the skin. Oh and that her sodium was down to 103. From there she was admitted for about 5 days. During that time we were able to get the reddness and swelling down and they think they figured out that her sodium was being effected by one of the dietabic medcines she was on. After a phone call to the dietabic doctor, he had wanted her to get some lab work done to see what her sodium was at because the week before it had been at 123, we were told that the medcine might be playing affecting her or it could be cancer. He had talked about wanting a CT scan done. I then informed him that the hospital had noticed that they would get her sodium up but that it would then crash after she took her medcine which was why they thought it was medcine. As for him wanting a CT scan done still or not I have no idea.
That though isn't the worse of the problems, or more pressing at this point. When she got out of the hospital she was told she could go back to work. She had one good day when nothing happened other then her being tired at the end of the day. That night as she was coming out of her closet she fell. She hadn't hit her head and it was possible that she slipped a newspaper by the door because she wasn't wearing any shoes/crocs at the time. No big deal other then I can't lift her by myself and no one else in the this house is allowed to lift anything over 50lbs. We got the ambualce to come and help get her up all without waking dad, a wanted thing for the simple fact that he doesn't sleep so well and he was going to work the next day.
Later that day while at work mom fell and this time she did hit her head. For the normal reason they wanted her to go to the hospital. Everything checked out. There was no head damage, and her hip looked fine. They took some x-rays, though not as much as they should have given just how bad that hinge is in her left leg, and said everything looked fine there. So as far as we knew she was good to go back to work on Monday since she was taking Friday off to see one of her two eye doctors.
After she got back from seeing the eye doctor she got a phone call from work telling her she couldn't come in till she had a doctor's note saying that everything was fine. Panic mood set in for about a minute till we tought about it and decided that it had to deal with the fact that she had hit her head. No big deal really we will just go see the primary doctor and get one.
Well it is a big deal. Turns out that they aren't talking about a doctor's note. They have put her on administrative leave not only for falling three time at work but aslo it seems she has been falling asleep at her desk. They want to know things that the doctos haven't even told us yet. Like what is the plan for this infection. There is a few possible outcomes. One is that they will be able to kill off the infection and there will be no missing work. Another is that they will have to go in flush out the infection which could mean she is out for about a month and half. The more likely, mainly since this has in fact happened at least three other times sincce she got the first knee replacement back in 2004, is that they will deem for her health they will have to take the leg. But we aren't going to know that till September 30th when she is seeing the knee doctor's PA, we couldn't even get in to see the doctor we have to see the PA and MAYBE they will have the doctor take a look at it.
They also want to know about all the other medical issues and then will decide if she can even come back to work. As for medical issues there is (and this is order of imporance right now) the leg, duh, her dietabetes, she has a heart issue that has been pasted down in the family, acid reflux, nerve demage because of the dietabetes, she can't really hold her bladder all that well, has a demaged lung from a emerancy heart surgery they had to do back '98 along with ashama, and is seeing a Rheumatologist. Her boss at first only gave her till Wesnesday to get this information together till he was told, in email form so it is on record, that her primary care works half a day on Wesnesday, wouldn't be in on Thursday, and takes Fridays off. Oh, he also sent the email informing of this on Monday evening after she had seen the doctor already and he had cleared her to go back to work. We didn't even get the informantion from her work till Tuesday.
At this point we have taking the notice to her primary doctor and he has said he will look it over and start working on it over the weekend. From what we can see they have realised that she wasn't given enough time and have the leave till the 7th. By then I'm hoping to at least know what the hell is going with her leg/infection issue.
To top this all off, mom doesn't want me to tell her sisters or anyone else in the family about what is going on. That in and of itself is just goign to make things so much harder if they decide that they need to remove the leg becuase they will then have to be informed about everything we have know about for almost a month and as you can see that is a lot of information.
Right now I just needed to get this stuff off my chest.