Ta Da!

Mom's follow-up visit went smashingly! Her x-rays showed her new, cool, hardware. He was happy with how she's doing. He let her go home without her neck brace. She cannot drive until she has had 2 PT sessions. But once she has them, she has her wings back. She seemed both thrilled and terrified of this--totally natural!

So, she'll go back in 6 weeks for another round of X-rays and follow-up visit with the good doc. Blog will be left up for a bit, but we'll take it down then. And, if you see the poll numbers you'll all be glad, like me, that she followed the rules. The two maybe votes were by her, isn't that funny?

Here are pix from the hospital stay, somewhat gross, but very telling compared to how great she's doing now...

Day 14

Mom got her staples out on Wednesday. Jamie drove her into Boston to Dr.Weller's office. She said they came out easily and that it didn't hurt much at all. No new information given about changes to her rules-to-live-by. Meaning, if you see her outside weeding, driving around, lifting anything beyond 10 lbs, stop your car, walk her back into her house and remind her how gross the surgery was. Also, ask her if she wants them to go back in and have to fix any popped screws or areas that didn't fuse properly. Thank you.

She sees Dr. Weller in early June to have an xray and see how the bones are solidifying. That will be a telling appointment. As always, please feel free to stop in at Mom's and offer to load some laundry, pull a few weeds for her (which I did yesterday), or take her to the movies. We're now at the point where she feels trapped at home. You all are the best, thank you for helping her!

I won't be updating the blog again until she sees Dr. Weller, or if she breaks the rules and does some damage.

One Week and one Day

I think it's time to shutter this blog...she's sailing right along, a routine clearly established. And, I know she must be feeling better because yesterday she had the nerve to try to reason with me about why people who've had this procedure can't drive for 4-6 weeks! ALARM bells. Start the neighborhood watch. If you see her driving around the 'hood, please call me or email right away.

How are we gonna keep her still-ish for another 3-5 weeks??? Could be trouble.

Today is a shower day so Gracie & I will head over to help wash her hair. It's all the small things that we take for granted. Seriously, when is the last time you stopped to give thanks for the ability to 1) get wet all over and 2) lift your arms above your head to wash your hair?

Please feel free to call her to check in. If she's resting, she won't answer. If you're passing by SoBo, stop in and see if you can rotate the laundry.

Thank you to all for supporting her so vigorously!

Day 5

She is settling into a routine. Eddie B peeps, you rock for doing the dinner thing...that will be a treat for them.

Her most difficult part is transitioning from flat to upright and, especially, without sufficient meds in her system. She is resting nicely. Narcotics are acting as a calming agent so that she rests. Stan is being a good nurse and acting as her go-to guy.

So, if we can continue this run, she'll get her staples out next Wednesday and be on the long road to recovery. The outside will be healed long before the insides...

Day 4, at home

So she's settled in at home as much as one can after mega-surgery.

She's quite uncomfortable today. She's been keeping up with her pain meds but seems to be having a lot of muscle spasm in one area of her back...we're trying to get the muscle spasm meds into her regularly today to see if that helps.

She phases from true pain into narcotic sleepiness, and this is how she'll be for the foreseeable future. It's very hard for her to throttle back and just 'be'. Herein will lie the problems once she actually starts feeling good without all the meds.

Please feel free to call her at home to offer words of encouragement, rides, or threats about staying still and just 'being'. :)

Pic (not for the weak)

Here is a pic of the wound, pretty awesome, huh?

She's Home!

They kicked her out around 4:15pm yesterday! Yeah, Mom!

She looked like they told her she had won and Academy Award, awestruck, incomprehensive, then scared. But, she was very brave and let them discharge her. We changed her, had her drain pulled, her IV block pulled, got paperwork, etc, etc. and made it out! One pit stop to get her meds along Route 1 then up to home!

Stan had mowed the lawn and washed the floor and the house looked great...she really likes a tidy house, so that was fantastic. We mentally went through a day to see where the great problem areas are going to be. Biggest two hurdles are the dog in the morning and going down the stairs in the morning. So, devised a system with Stan and we'll find out in a little bit if it worked and she made it down the stairs without falling or getting knocked over by the dog. I was/am a little worried about it...

I will update again later, but feel free to call her and remind her to respect the work that was done on her body and be still and no lifting over 10 lbs or raising her arms too high. Phew.

Day Three AM

Mom just called!

She had a good night, had eaten breakfast already and was awaiting the rounds by the young docs!

I think if you'd like to call her she's totally ready to find the phone (it's diff. to turn her head, but she has acclimated herself to where things are around her bed).

Phone 617-636-5000, she's in Proger 586 bed 2.

More later!

Day Two, Day/PM

So sorry for no update last night--too pooped to update.

She's doing GREAT! Tolerating pain med well, up and moving when she has to pee. Eating. Once the drain in her neck starts secreting less (under a certain no. of MLs in a 24 hr period) she'll be able to go home, most like tomorrow. She's all done the steroids (to help healing faster) and done with antibiotics. They were able to take out one of her hand lines yesterday, so that feels better for her.

I'll be back there hanging out with her later today and will def. update later. Keep the good vibes coming, they are most certainly working!

Day Two, morning

She got a room. Give me an AMEN!

586 Proger North, don't know if she has a phone. Tufts Med. Ctr.

She slept most of the night, peed a few times (without alerting the nurse, oops, she's not supposed to be roaming around w/o help yet, no shock there), and generally asserted herself.

I'm off to storm the gates (they told Jamie they'd let us in, so not really storming the gates). Jamie will do second shift so I'll update later.

Thank you for your continued good thoughts for her.

Day One

All systems a GO for Mom! All blog systems not a go...

She made it through surgery. My updates via text didn't work, did they? Hmmmm...

Jamie and I spent 3.5 hours walking around Boston killing time after they took her into the OR prep zone. Returned to the hospital to await word from the doctor about how it went. He came out and said all was good. She had some scarring around her bones which made it more difficult to remove the posterior portions, but he made it work. He told us she should be up in her room after lunch (it was not a little after 11am). We thanked him and ventured out for lunch.

Decided to go with pretzels and beer for lunch and save the Chinatown experience for dinner. After killing 2+ hours we thought it safe to head over to her room. We stopped at Au Bon Pain for ice tea for Mom and some cookies for Jamie. We got to the patient info. booth and they told us she was still in recovery (uh oh!). And, they couldn't forecast how long it would be until they moved her. They called up to recovery for us to see if they could get more info. and they couldn't. They told us to try back in an hour. Ugh.

Off we went again on foot to search for shoes (two Cliffords with bad shoe fetishes is not a good thing) and kill some more time. We started walking back to the hospital and decided we'd get smart and check to see ahead of walking all the way back if she'd been moved. Nope! (uh oh). Again, they couldn't forecast a time. The desk people said give it 20 minutes and call recovery directly. This we did. They told us we could come say hi to her and that they probably wouldn't have a bed for her any time soon (by now Jamie was using expletives b/c how could they schedule a surgery for a person and know they would be in the hospital for 3 days w/o having a bed, for Pete's sake!@#$^#@@$).

Back we went. Found our way to the PACU. They let us in and she was so happy her hands and feet moved! She was loopy as heck due to meds and equally nauseous. We got to spend 15 mins. with her and try to tell her all was good and that we'd be back tomorrow. She seemed to understand. The nurse said to call back at 9pm to see if they had a better idea about beds.

Oddly enough, I called to touch base with her nurse before she went off duty but got the old "call back in a while" line. Then, 20 minutes later who should call but Mom herself!!! She was good, remembered talking to us, was also told she'd have no bed tonight. She said they were giving her steroids to help with the healing of the wound (Mom's reasoning was iffy and she sounded unconvincing that that was why she was getting the 'roids) and that they also had to give her insulin b/c her sugars were all over the place? Could this be why she was so loopy when we saw her? Don't know.

So, Jamie and I left. What a weird day. Now I'm home, disinfected after being in a germy hospital and still unsure whether to head back early and hope they'll let me crash the gates or wait until I make contact bright and early...

She's actually going to get better care in the PACU than in a room, so it's almost better.

I will update tomorrow night after hopefully finding her in a room tomorrow.

Thank you for your calls, emails & texts of concern. She is very loved.

Did this one work?

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The Game Plan

Mom is due at Tufts at 6am. Her surgery time is 7:30am. They said it would take approximately 2.5 hours to do the procedure. Then to recovery where she'll wake up. She'll be there a couple of hours, I'm guessing. So, I would imagine she'll be in a room after lunch.

I will post updates once I have news post surgery. And, I'm assuming she won't be very chatty tomorrow. If you'd like to post comments to her on the blog, go right ahead. I can read them to her if she's perky on Saturday.

I will have day 1.5 shift from Friday until mid-day Saturday. Jamie will take next shift from mid-Saturday until mid Sunday. Then I'll come back in and do the final shift. Hoping she'll be kicked out late Sunday or some time on Monday.

Until tomorrow...

The Good Doc

Might as well start with the dude who will be fixing Mom up...Dr. Simcha Weller.

Dr. Weller's Credentials

Welcome

I have set up this blog to let people follow Laurie's surgical adventures this weekend. It will be easier for me to upload updates than plug in zillions of email addresses.

We'll go live on Friday. She has to be at the hospital at 6am for her 7:30 go time. Say prayers, cross fingers, etc.

Thank goodness for modern medicine.