Friday, August 13, 2010

Helping Mom and Getting a Medical Education

What a week it's been. At 12:30 on Wednesday morning, my dad calls and says "Can you come down... mom took a turn for the worse." OMG -- of course I started freaking by hearing the tone in my dad's voice. The pain became so intense for her she simply couldn't stand up any more. It was a frantic, emotional evening and I sat with her in the emergency room until they FINALLY (after 4 times in the ER!) admitted her to the hospital around 7:00 am. Since they had an official diagnoses from an orthopedic doctor (spinal fracture from osteoporosis), they agreed to admit her. They immediately put her on morphine. It's harrowing to watch a loved one be in so much pain and you are basically helpless. She also was very dehydrated from throwing up from percocet meds. She was in rough shape. Much longer story shortened, she's currently in short-term rehab trying to deal with the pain and today she received an epidural. No, you're right -- an epidural isn't going to help a fracture. It turns out she has another ailment that's causing her so much pain. Here's my word of the year and my new found education: Spondylolisthesis. I'm still practicing how to say that one and can't get it out right anytime I try to say it. It's slippage of the bone in the spine and the excruciating pain she's been feeling is from the pressure the slipped bone is putting on the nerves. Thus, the epidural. We are praying it works and gives her some relief. She can't take much more pain. So her issues are twofold: the osteoporosis spinal fracture (the pain doc called it a sacral fracture) and the spondylolisthesis which is the real culprit. Oh, it can be caused 5 ways, one is degenerative arthritis which is her diagnoses (along with the osteoporosis). If the epidural works and the get her pain under control, she's coming home on Monday. You have no idea how much I'm praying her pain subsides. Poor thing. As a side note and you can think what you'd like on this one, we went through 6 doctors, a nurse practitioner, and countless radiology techs and nurses to get a doctor who explained to us today in 20 minutes more information than we received in the past 6 weeks. My mom and I BOTH were astounded at all the information that came out of Dr. Dunn's mouth in layman's terms. We were absolutely thrilled to get so much information. Don't be afraid to ask your doctor questions if something isn't clear. What an experience.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The people are loosing their moral while becoming modern. The society needs to be attentive that moral value.
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