Two years ago...
My mom fell on Wednesday, July 30th at about 3 pm. When Dad found her she was blue, gasping for air, and totally unresponsive. According to the doctors at Providence Milwaukie Hospital, when the EMTs arrived she was dieing. They had a CT scan done and discovered that she had fractured C2 in her neck, this is the 2nd vertebra down from the base of her skull. The prognosis is not good. She was transferred to Emanuel Hospital at about 5 pm that same evening because they do not have the ability to care for her where she was.
At Emanuel they did a repeat CT and a MRI. She is still unresponsive. The news is not good. She will be a c2 quadriplegic and vent dependent for the rest of her life and they feel that she had a hypoxic brain injury and may never wake up.
On Friday, August 1st we are told that things are grim and that we have two choices. Begin life support by within 3 days or remove the ventilator and let her pass. Dad and I had a "easy" choice to make. Mom made her wishes very clear. We decided to remove the ventilator in the next two days, probably the next morning. A little while later we discovered that Mom wants to be an organ donor so we got the ball rolling on that. Her chart was reviewed, blood was drawn, and they did an exam to determine whether on not she could donated her organs. After this it was decided that we would go through on Sunday with everything.
Well, she had a different idea. She woke up Saturday morning, August 2nd. Since then she had surgery to repair the dens (projection) on c2 with a screw and the off came the c-collar on the same day, August 3rd. Tuesday, August 5th she had surgery to put in the trach. Since then it has been treating her respiratory complications, tests, positioning, clogged NG tube, poking and prodding.
About a week later we almost lost her again... her heart rate and BP would plummet. The nurses kept a stock of resuscitation meds in her room. Yes, it was that bad and started happening that frequently. With the pushing of the nurses and my Dad wagging war she finally got her pacemaker.
On from there the docs fought raging infections, a collapsed lung, and basically kept her alive until they could shirk her off on to Craig hospital. Yes... a level one trauma hospital lied to get her transferred because they were unable to deal with the infections.
Mom the day she left for Denver. You can see how sick she still is.
Over the past two years mom has enduring poking, prodding, surgeries, multiple infections, a huge pulmonary embolism that almost took her from us again. Dad continues to stand by her side. Providing all of her care when the situation calls for it. The bond between my parent's is the stuff dreams are made from.
Mom now...
In honor of this huge life changing event lil Pooligans is doing a 50% drawing for Summer Fun during the anniversary of the three hardest days of my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment