I'm Really Home

The first couple of days I was apprehensive of coming home. The things that were so difficult for me to do in the hospital (get in and out of bed, walk a little, even roll over) just seemed like they would be impossible on my own. I had at least one daughter there around the clock and sometimes two. But this is turning out to be way better than I was expecting. Adrienne is a hard taskmaster but I try to do everything she says.

They gave me a walker and that is more helpful than I expected. Trying to use it inside the hospital room was just ridiculous. But using it here is helpful, even tho there are only 10 to 15 steps at a time. In the hospital there were never more than 2 or 3.

From Mary's estate came a bidet type of seat that can be installed on a normal toilet and Jeff is coming over tonight to install it (or give it a good try).

Adrienne is fixing a roast beef dinner for us and Steph and her husband and Rita will be joining us also.

My wound leakage has been keeping Adrienne busy with laundry and she went out and got me a vinyl mattress cover for my bed and pillows. She is taking very good care of me and is sympathetic to my whining. She has set up some very professional medication charts so as not to kill me.

I thank you for all the prayers and good thoughts.

There's No Place Like Home

Mom is home!! I just got the call from Adrienne. After I talked to her at about 11am they changed mom's dressing and basically said she was good to go. She stayed for lunch (they had good soup there) and then off they went. Adrienne claimed to be stinky (I thought I smelled something) and she was heading into the shower and then she was going off to fill prescriptions. Just in case mom has any more pain. Nah, that won't happen.

Some things may be harder at home than they were in the hospital, but still I am sure it is nice to be home. I know I like thinking of here there more than I liked thinking of her in the hospital. Maybe she will even do her own post soon.

Better and Better

Mom did a lot yesterday morning while Adrienne went home to sleep. She had an Occupational Therapist come in and talk to her about how to do things when she goes home. Mom proved to her that she could handle the bathroom and I was happy for the help with that (Adrienne had been doing most of the potty runs). As soon as she left the Physical Therapist came in and Mom walked down the hall and up a few stairs. Of course, I ran ahead and had a chair waiting at the end of the hall for her to rest and she was very happy for that. The PT person was surprised but we explained that we have been dealing with back pain for years, this is nothing new to us. Anyway, she handled the stairs fine and then it was back to bed. But only for a few minutes until the new brace arrived with a brace technician to show us how to use it. Boy was I sorry Adrienne wasn't there then, she is the one that will need to get this on mom when they are home. Luckily, she is a smart cookie who has braced things before and she will figure it out in no time. The brace person really pissed mom off because she was always standing in the way and was just generally clueless. I finally went for the nurse who was able to intervene and the brace person went on her way. So mom was sitting up in the brace for most of the morning and she was sitting that way and having her lunch when Adrienne got back. Aunt Rita showed up at about the same time and quickly filled them in on all of our activities and then hightailed it to Indiana to hug my baby. And sleep. Sleep is good. Sleep is great. Sleep is even better in a real bed with real pillows. Mmmmmm. Sleep. But I digress.

I talked to Adrienne last night and again this morning and mom is doing fine. She has pain on and off, but she has more good than bad. The doctor mentioned changing her dressing before she went home but he did not sign a discharge order yet so we are still hanging on to find out exactly when they might be able to go home. I will keep you all posted.

Ice Anyone?

Mom has eaten more than her fair share of ice here in the hospital, each tech has commented on how much she can go through. That would not be enough to necessitate a whole blog post but then Adrienne called me from the parking lot this mornng at 6:45am asking where mom kept her ice scraper. I told her to bring mittens and she didn't believe me.

Mom is doing really well. She had some pretty bad, discouraging pain last night. Each pain med they gave her seemed to have no effect at all. We turned the ballgame on and read trivia questions and the distractions helped. At around midnight the nurse got some Benadryl approved and I decided to go to sleep in the lounge so Mom could try to sleep better. I found out later that around 1am she had some of the IV pain medicine and ended up getting up to go to the bathroom and decided to take a little walk down the hall. I missed it all.

She slept good and I slept good (the lounge had a chair that turned into a pretty decent bed) but Adrienne did not sleep much. So we sent her back to mom's to get some sleep this morning and when she gets back I will start for home. I couldn't let her go before 6:30 because the tech that was on last night (nicknamed BroomHilda) was terrible. We needed Adrienne her to manage potty breaks, etc.

One of the doctors came in after Adrienne left and told mom that she could have the IV taken out this morning since she has been eating good. That will makes trips to the bathroom much, much easier. He also took out a drain that has been in her since the surgery. He seemed to think that she should be going home tomorrow. Yay!

I don't have much juice left in my laptop and all of the plugs in here are taken up by beeping things, so this may be my last post. I am sure Adrienne and mom will keep you all updated when they get home.

Vampires

We are doing great! Right at this moment. Mom's doctor has come and gone and he upped her pain medication. She hasn't actually taken any more than usual but she is feeling good anyway. Adrienne went home for a little while and she just came back a few minutes ago. Aunt Rita just went home and we plan on settling in for the night. One of the results from an earlier blood test was that her hemoglobin was low an so we have been dripping the fluid of life into her for the last few hours. Her cheeks are pink and rosy and all is right with our world. Right enough even to take a picture or two.

Home for One

Adrienne is here! Yay! Since we all had such a long day yesterday and mom was not ready to be left alone without a daughter, Jeannette picked Adrienne up from the airport and brought her right to the hospital. To manage cars I had Jeannette bring me back home so that I could shower and change and then drive my own car to the hospital. That way Adrienne could take possession of mom's car and not be tied to anyone for a ride anywhere. Aunt Rita is on her way back to the hospital so it might be a full room for the rest of the day, since I plan on heading back as soon as I am done here.

We made it through the pain (with a little help from Categories/Encore and modern pharmeceuticals) and on to lunch, which mom liked very much. She did some rotating in the bed which was not as bad as she feared and she was scheduled to get some blood as I was leaving. I feel great knowing that I left a sister behind so I don't have to worry about her.

A shower and a nap sound really good right about now.

Take a Little Walk

It is just past 10am and mom just went for a little walk. The physical therapist taught her the right way to get out of bed and she said it was not nearly as bad as she feared it would be. Not that it was good, but when you are dreading something and it is only bad the contrast effect makes it seem great. She walked with a walker just a little ways down the hall and back and it made her feel weak. She is still having a lot of pain so it is all hard, but we are getting through it.

A New Day

It is just about 7:30am and Adrienne is in Houston. Mom and I both slept some but could have used more. Here is the thing about sleeping in a hospital room while not in a bed: I am not so old that I can't get into the contortionistic (totally a word) positions necessary to sleep in a chair but I am too old to hold those positions very long. Something would start to hurt and/or fall asleep and I would have start positioning all over again on the other side. And then, when I could finally find the perfect position someone would come it to take vitals or blood or something. The nausea seems to be gone; Adrienne says that means the anestesia has finally worn off.

One of the nurses last night assured mom that this was the worst part and today wouldbe better because she would be able to get up and walk some. If you know mom, and you all do, you know that she is very dubious of this claim.

Anyway, Jeannette will be picking Adrienne up in a few hours and bringing her here. Yay!!

Still Here

Well, it is nearly 10pm and I am still at the hospital with mom. She was in a lot of pain when she was wheeled upstairs and then she got very nauseous. For the record, dry heaving is not recommended after back surgery. When the nurse got back from dinner she gave mom some pain medication and something for the nausea. It helped a little but she was still very uncomfortable and the room felt very hot. Gretch and I took turns fanning her with a folder while the technicians brought her a roommate. Luckily, the roommate started snoring almost immediately so we did not feel like we were disturbing her.

Visiting hours were officially over at around 8pm but I asked mom if she wanted me to try to spend the night and she said yes. So Gretchen and Gordon took Aunt Rita home and I have pulled the most comfortable chair in the room up the bed. She had some more nausea at around 9:20 and they gave her something else (reglan?) which seems to be helping a great deal. The nurse also put the head of her bed up at about a 30deg angle (a position that she had resisted earlier because getting there was painful) and that seems to have helped too. Oh yeah, and they shut off the stupid automatic blood pressure machine which was squeezing her arm off every 14 minutes. She is still having some on and off pain and the nurse just offered her a Valium, but mom said it is not that bad yet. The nurse told her not to wait until it got bad. I like our nurse.

Anyway, she is going in and out of sleep and hopefully she will feel better in the morning.

A Real Room

After three hours in recovery mom is finally in a real room. She is sharp as a damn tack (according to her) and she looks like she just went through major surgery but she is fine. We are only going to stay for a little while so she can get set up (can you say morphine drip) and then we will all be heading off to our respective beds. Gretchen's bed is still 2.5 hours away. Poor baby.

Recover This

OK, she is out of surgery and into recovery. It took much longer than they expected and her bones are softer than anyone (including her) knew, but she did fine.

At about 2:45pm we got beeped and when we went to the desk we had a phone call from the OR saying that it was taking longer than they expected but she was fine and they should be finished within the hour. Then 15 minutes later we were beeped and the surgeon said "It went fine." He had no intention of saying anything else (mom warned us that he was a man of few words), but when pressed he said that she had very soft bones so it took longer than expected. He said she would be in recovery for a few hours and then moved to a regular room where she will be for 3-4 days. We are back in the cafeteria having some lunch. We probably won't get to see her until around 5pm but I will post after that.

In the OR

It took a long time, but she was finally wheeled into surgery at around 9:50am. The hospital has a beeper system that is really cool. When we showed up they signed mom in and they gave us a beeper, just like the one you get at a restaurant when there is a wait. Then we all went into the waiting room, when the beeper went off they took mom away. I tried valiantly to go with her but they assured me that they just needed mom at that point and they would beep us when we could come back. After a half hour I started getting antsy (it is going to be a long day) and I made Gretchen go look in the hallways to make sure they hadn't left her somewhere. While she was gone the beeper went off again and we were able to go back and sit with mom. Well, sit is overstating it, only one of us could sit at a time. After about an hour of waiting for the surgeon and having twenty people come in and take a brief history ("have you become alergic to anything in the last three minutes?) the resident said that the surgeon was not likely to come back to see her before the surgery and it could be up to a half hour more. So, Gretchen went to get Aunt Rita so that she could see mom before she went back. Then within about 20 minutes they came and wheeled her off. I assured her that we loved her like crazy and we would be there when she came out.

Gretchen went out for a McD run and Aunt Rita and I are sitting in the cafeteria waiting. Our next beep should not be for a few hours and it should be the surgeon coming to tell us how the operation went. I will check in again after that. Or when I am bored. Which ever comes first.

Out the Door

It is 6:10am and we have all be up since 5:30am (OK, we woke mom up but she needed to get up eventualy). Aunt Rita just came in the door and we are on our way to the hospital. I called ahead they told me I could scrub in on a few surgeries while I am there, I feel qualified since I watch her little video. Or we may just play cards (Gretchen, Gordon, Aunt Rita, and I will all be there).

And So It Starts

A few weeks ago Jeannette informed me that Marc's sister Theresa had died. I knew that she was ailing, but if I knew from what, I have forgotten now. She is the second one of those 13 siblings that reached adulthood to pass. She was 82 years old. She is survived by (in descending order) Lucille (86), Noella (84), John Robert (79), Julien (76), Marc (75), Pierrette (73), Andree (72), Gilles (71), Fleur Ange and Fleur Aimee (70), and Francine (64). Note the big jump between the twins and Francine was filled by two other children (MaTante Yvonne was no slacker) who died very young.

Doctor, Doctor

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment with my primary care physician to renew my maintenance prescriptions. Those include blood pressure medications and Celebrex for arthritis. However, he was not the doctor that could clear me for surgery. So I had another appointment today with his son who does Internal Medecine.

A couple days ago I mentioned to someone that I almost felt like a fraud for scheduling such drastic surgery when my pain had been tolerable for the last few days. Fast forward to this morning. Two days ago I had stopped (on surgeon's orders) taking any Vicodin, Celebrex or anything else containing aspirin or nsaids. I had a heck of a time getting out of bed. I could take tylenol except not then because I was fasting for blood work. I got myself to the doctor's office and sat in the waiting room, fighting back tears (and not always successfully). They took the blood, and EKG, and Xrays, then the doctor came in.

I told him my dilemma and asked him if I could maybe take Tylenol 4 which I used to take for back pain. He explained why not but said that it would be ok for me to take the vicodin as long as I didn't take more than one or two per day. I love this doctor. I took one on my way out to the car.

Me and Jeannette have a date to go to Windsor Casino on Sunday and I was supposed to treat her to a birthday lunch. All morning I was thinking of how disappointed she was going to be when I cancelled. Not because she needed the free lunch but she doesn't like to go to the casino alone and counts on me as a companion. Now that I can take a pain pill, with tylenol in between, I'm good to go.

By the way, I'm good to go for the surgery, too. The doctor said I tested perfect.

Well Shut My Mouth

Today I had an appointment at the Michigan Spine and Brain Surgeons. I thought I was meeting with a Dr. Tecksoo. Turns out it was first name Teck, last name Soo. As Rita was parking the car I said, "The best thing that could happen is that he looks at the MRI pictures and says, I can fix that." We were in the waiting room and inner exam room for 2 hours before we ever saw the doctor. Nurses took a lot of information from me and they took a set of x-rays.

When the doctor finally came in, he took out my MRI pictures and looked at each one and said (I swear to God) "I can fix you". I'm not sure I asked all the right questions and he seemed a little cavallier but I am scheduled for a Lumbar Laminectomy and Fusion on October 26th. He asked several times if I was sure that I could no longer live with the pain. That was a hard question because I still have some relatively good days. But when I remember the really bad ones I believe I am ready for whatever will help.

All the nurses I interacted with at that office said he is an excellent surgeon. The surgery will be done at Providence Hospital. They have a spine surgery seminar every Friday and Rita and I plan to go next friday. They also gave me a web site www.understandingspinesurgery.com/soo that will give me an animated explanation of my surgery. If you want to see it, you click on Patient Education, enter your email address and click I Agree and it will take you to the main menu. My condition is under Spondylolisthesis - Laminectomy, Fusion - Instrumented. The nurse that gave me this information also checked Scoliosis - Derotation with Instrumentation, but the doctor never mentioned that he was going to do that part although I was told a few years ago that scoliosis was one of my problems.

I am hoping that Adrienne will be able to come stay with me for a few weeks during my recovery. Its all moving pretty fast and things are falling into place. Just everybody remember to add me to your list of people for God to bless when you say your evening prayers.

The War

Last night I finished watching the Ken Burns series on PBS called The War. Boy, was that ever informative and interesting. Names that I remembered or heard later of battles and cities were put into perspective. The sheer numbers and statistics were so interesting. We all knew that virtually all manufacturing was geared to the war effort but I didn't know that only 139 automobiles were built during the 4 years that we were at war.

And at the Willow Run plant here one airplane rolled off the assembly line every 63 minutes. That's just about 24 airplanes per day and the plant was running 24/7. Ok, so even with more than 165 airplanes per week coming off the line here in Detroit, how the heck did they get them all overseas to take part in those massive battles.

The next most interesting fact I learned was about the battle of the bulge. I thought "The Bulge" was a city or area in Europe and learned that it was a protrusion on the map where the Germans were able to push back part of our hard-fought advance line near the German border.

I thought the program was very well done, giving information about what was going on here at home as well as "over there".

They're Still Laughing

I mentioned in a comment of one of Gabby's posts that slot machines don't talk to me they just laugh at me. Well they were all in cahoots at Windsor yesterday. One of my worst days at a casino. The bus doesn't leave there till 7:00 and by 5:30 I was all done playing. I told Jeannette to just park my wheelchair out of the way somewhere and keep on playing, but she just played a couple more machines and we went to the bus lounge to wait.

The up side of yesterday, not counting that erika and Jackson were there in the morning is that Jeannette had made some green tomatoe relish the day before and she gave me a jar. Yum.