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Cathy & Yves's spaceThe battle is still on & we will beat Itchy & Stinky! |
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Thanks for visiting!
Patwrote:
Dear Cathy and Yves,
Aec are thinking of you and have mega positive thoughts vibbing away.
Love Pat and Alec
Apr. 9
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June 30 Tuesday morningCathy’s home since Monday last week, she’s a lot more comfortable and has a lot better quality of life than she had at the hospital. Meaning I’m there to harass and bug her full time!
The pain was well managed until Thursday night, and then it got progressively worse. We were doing OK with the break true and the additional drugs we had available. It was adjust yesterday to a higher dose from the pump and it seems to be better so far. She is a little more sleepy and her speech is a little more laborious, obviously a direct effect from the drugs.
We receive the visit a PCA (personal care assistant) every morning for her “bath” and starting this week they will also come in block of time twice a week to give me some time to go grocery shopping, etc.
In addition to the PCA, there’s a nurse who visit every day to monitor her condition and check that everything is stable and under control. She obviously check for any sign or symptoms that I wouldn’t notice. Lately, Cathy told me that she doesn’t want to go back to the hospital. She prefers to stay home and use the drugs to control pain and discomfort from now on. June 22 Cathy's home!!!What a week!
The surgery did good result, but we learned on Wednesday night that the 3rd vertebrae wasn’t done… it seems like it was too damage to be repaired, so it will heal in it’s current state. We probably won’t be able to get off the meds, but we’ll possibly be able to reduce later on.
She now uses a pump to provide her with her meds and it made a big difference in the pain management. A LOT BETTER! That’s one of the reason we were able to come home.
The arrangement is that we have an electric bed that allows her to get comfortable. This one is install in the living room. She’s supplied with extra oxygen because she had a beginning of pneumonia and the fact that the compression fracture prevents her from being able to take deep breath. In addition to those, the drugs she is one will slow her breathing as well.
We will have PCA (personal care assistant) that will to help me morning and night. That schedule can change if I prefer. A nurse will come regularly to check on her and me, as well as physiotherapist in order to help her strengthen her legs.
Today at KGH, they were moving the patients from the 3rd floor to the 9th, and the one from the 9th to the 3rd. I think it’s because they didn’t know what to do with their time ;-) It was just pure chaos. But everyone was doing his or her part so that we could leave. I think they saw Cathy’s eyes when they say they will try to have her out by today, I think they got scared! So we’re home now and take it from there! June 16 Late night update.A lot of ups & downs since last blog entry…
Even with the higher dose of Hydromorphone she still had bad days, but for the most part it was OK. The problems were mainly because she didn’t get them on regular bases. Instead of receiving them every 4 hours, she often received them between 2 and 6 hours. Obviously when it was 6 hours, the pain was back.
Then on Thursday, she was suppose to have the surgery, “balloon Kyphoplasty” but they realised, when she was in the OR, that she was on blood thinner, DUH! So it was postpone to Tuesday this week.
Since Saturday AM, she also had pain in her chest. After numerous test and evaluation, it came down to 2 possibilities. Either it’s a small fracture (of the sternum or a rib close to the sternum) or it’s an inflammation of the intercostals cartilage (the cartilage that attach the ribs to the sternum). Either way it’s neither dangerous nor treatable with anything. It just needs to heal by itself.
The surgery this morning was a lot longer than initially though of. It took a total of 3 hours!!! It was roughly 45min per broken vertebrae. When she came back to her room, around 17:15hrs, she was still pretty groggy from the narcotics but still pretty conscious. She was able to say goodbye to my parents that waited for her return from the OR.
Then she was hungry and ate most of her dinner!!!
She’s now resting for tonight and I’ll be there tomorrow morning to get more information’s on how the procedure went, and see what’s the result. If the pain is gone, reduced or the same. Chance’s are it will be reduce by a good margin.
You can go on www.kyphon.com to get more information on the procedure. That’s it for now, let you know more soon. To be updated tonight,,,I’m a little late!!!
Cathy will have the intervention today (Tuesday), I will write about it tonight and let everyone know how last week went as well. Keep you posted June 08 Where to start...A lot happened since last week!
We were managing the pain until Thursday morning with the morphine and it was going pretty good, until she experienced acute pain again in her back after going to the bathroom. We used as much of the morphine as we could but still couldn’t manage the pain. I then sent an email to Dr Madarnas and her answer was to get Cathy ASAP to the emergence to have an X-Ray of her back.
We, once again, waited for a long time before having it done and getting the result… Another compression fracture! No wonder she experienced more pain.
Since then they kept her to be able to manage the pain. She was in Emerge for the first 24hrs and it wasn’t very good, they messed up the meds and she had a VERY BAD night. She finally got her private room on Saturday night. By then they change the medication to go with Hydromorphone, 4 mg every 4 hrs. After 24hrs it still didn’t do the job and it was then increased to 6 mg every 4 hrs. Now we’re talking. The pain is finally under control. She can roll in her bed without having to endure extreme pain.
On Sunday they’ve done another CT-Scan of her back in order to see better on the fracture, at the same time they were able to notice that almost her complete spine is weaken by the osteoporosis as well as her rib cage. On Monday they done a bone density test and we should get the result tomorrow.
One of the Drs told Cathy that she’s a good candidate for a back surgery that mainly consists in “repairing” the 3 fractures in a way to reduce the compression and the pain. I should get more detail on the procedure tomorrow.
Depending on the result of the surgery, if we do it, and of the capacity to manage the pain, we will then evaluate if she can come back home. It’s crucial that if we do that, that it’s done in a safe way that reduce to the maximum the risk of creating more fracture and pain to her. That will probably take at least a week before we have those answers.
I'll try to update the blog as news comes along... |
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