TEN STEPS!

Yesterday, after being out of the hospital one week, she took ten steps!!! That's the first time she has walked in about a year! Today, she took eighteen steps!

The therapy has been going great, and she has been so excited!!

Needless to say, the steps don't come without a lot of support, but just moving her legs and shifting her weight from one leg to the other is a big deal! We are all very excited and blessed!

The next step (so to speak) will be for her to be able to get herself around and out of bed and to a standing position on her own.

I believe (not sure) she has a doctor's appointment either the end of this week or early next week to see about the stitches, etc. from the knee surgery.

They'll have her walking the halls of the nursing home pretty soon!

New attitude still paying off...

We were with Mom on Thursday night when the Occupational Therapist came in. Turns out she was really an (independent?) evaluator to give instructions to the Vista Ridge OTs for Mom's therapy sessions. She talked about the relationship between Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy, and that a lot would overlap; but OT was most concerned that she be able to conduct life skills (go to the bathroom, get around to do necessary life things, etc.) She was very impressed with Mom's upper body strength (of course, she wanted more, but commented she was stronger than she expected). She was concerned about the other knee (the one NOT replaced) and felt it could be an issue. She also asked about equipment available and made recommendations for that as well (Mom does have a walker). She gave Mom some exercises and told her she would check back with her soon.

Dad left yesterday morning for Big Spring and commented that Mom was having a bad day; she had a headache and wasn't feeling very well. When we saw her last night, she had been through all of her therapy and was feeling just fine! Pam commented that, had she felt bad 4-5 months ago, she would have told the therapists and just skipped therapy; she's now charging right on through! It will be interesting to see her progress with her new positive, goal-oriented attitude!

They had a nice anniversary together on the 19th and shared cards (we took her some cards to select from for Dad). Dad gave her a box of chocolates and they enjoyed the day!

Spending the anniversary in Vista Ridge

Mom returned to Vista Ridge yesterday about 3:00 p.m. By the time we checked in around 5:30 p.m., she was enjoying a dinner of catfish. She was completely "untethered" to any morphine, blood, or other intravenous activity. She was in a great mood, but a little tired from the ambulance ride back. She was in a good mood and good spirits.

Today (March 19th) is Mom & Dad's 55th anniversary.

We went and bought an assortment of cards last night for Mom to choose from, and I took them to her early this morning before Dad got going (about 8:00 a.m.). She was asleep, but woke up enough to choose a card or two to share with Dad for their anniversary (we did the same thing for her on Valentine's Day).

We anticipate good things to start moving quickly!

Leaving the hospital?

Yesterday was a tough day (I think we all knew there had to be a bad day in there somewhere). They gave her 2 units of blood, so she couldn't use the morphine pump. They were giving her pain medication orally, though. Both OT and PT did pretty much the same thing- make her stand, which really hurts-- but we all know those are the next big steps (no pun intended). As far as pain management, when the nurse came in last night to ask how her pain was, she said she was a 6 (out of 10); the nurse asked her if she wanted any medicine, and she said no.

Two big problems with standing and walking (and even moving around in bed, for that matter): (1) one loeg just had surgery (2) the other has atrophied to a point where it is not real functional at this time. She still has drop foot on both feet (although one leg is not as bad as the other), so standing requires her to be on her tiptoes. There's still a long row to hoe on this part. Therapists are working a lot on upper body strength so she can help support herself while standing (and walking in the future).

Mom and Dad both mentioned that the doctor will probably try to release her soon. The social worker came in again last night and had contacted Vista Ridge for transportation today (Wednesday) back to the nursing home, so, if all things fall into place (lots of bureaucracy at the hospital, of course), then she may be going back to the nursing home today.

That would be good for all of us! Presby is at least 40 minutes away in traffic, plus they charge a dadgum $3 to park there!!!!

OK, so what do you mean by "time-space continuum"?

Don't read this until you read the In much better shape than after the original surgery first!

Here's how the story went last night. It was too funny to make up...

We had tickets to the Dallas Symphony "Pops" on Sunday to see Debbie Boone. Come to find out, it was actually the Glenn Miller Orchestra in the first half of the show with Debbie Boone singing a tribute to Rosemary Clooney (her mother-in-law, as it turns out) in the second half. We told Mom when we got back about some of the stories Debbie Boone told (including being the granddaughter of Red Foley of Grand Ol' Opry fame) when we got to her room (she seemed lucid enough at the time).

When we got to the hospital to see Mom, Tamara (my sister-in-law) had been with her most of the day, and left soon after we arrived (it was about 6:00 p.m.). They were preparing to move Mom to a different room away from ICU (a semi-private room vs. the private room she was currently in), so they gave her a pain pill which she took along with her morphine pump. While we were talking (this would be me, Pam, and Mom), one of the machines pumping medicine into her intravenously starting beeping (about every 4 seconds), creating somewhat of a nuisance, but not really causing any problems as they prepared to move her to the new room.

So, we asked Mom what all she and Tamara talked about, and she said: "I got really tickled at her, because Debbie told her that she was the granddaughter of Red Foley, and she was amazed at how she didn't realize that!" While that caught us off guard, the next one was even better: "Tamara had a real problem trying to count between the beats of the machine, and was getting really frustrated that she couldn't fit four beats between the machine beeping!"

Now, needless to say, Tamara wasn't even there for the Red Foley story, much less was she involved; the same goes for the beeping machine story, as she had already left before the machine starting beeping. So, for Mom, the time-space continuum sort of all blended together in the medicated swirl of her world....

At least we know-- she felt no pain!!


So, as we discussed

In much better shape than after the original surgery

This was a big topic of conversation tonight More on that later...

Mom is doing really well. She was moved to a room out of ICU yesterday and is eating regular meals and is recovering quickly. Tamara stayed with her most of the day yesterday and we visited last night and tonight (just after Dad arrived back from Big Spring). They stood her up twice today, as well as continue doing her upper body exercises. A social worker came in this afternoon to arrange physical therapy services back with Vista Ridge, so we believe things are progressing as expected.

She still has the morphine pump, which makes for interesting trips into the time-space continuum. When she's pretty "pumped up," she confuses stories and even the characters involved. It can be pretty entertaining. That didn't happen tonight, but happened several times last night.

Back to the title of this post. We had a long discussion about how poorly Mom was doing last year before surgery. Even the grand-kids commented about how concerned they were following Thanksgiving and Christmas 2007. She seemed to fall asleep at the drop of a hat and couldn't keep up in a conversation without falling asleep, so we don't really know what was going on before the hip replacement last March. All we know is that she is in much better mental and physical shape to come out of this surgery than she was a year ago. We like to contribute that to better medical care than she could was getting, but quite frankly, we really don't know. If you saw her in the first 3 months of 2008 (before the hip surgery), you would be amazed at how much she seems like herself again as opposed to how she was then. She's back to her positive, determined, optimistic ways. She seems determined to get out of the nursing home as soon as possible. We never saw that last year!

Lovin' that Morphine Drip!

Mom's in ICU, so we only got to visit about 10 minutes before they ran us out. (Dad gets to stay all the time.) She was groggy and tried to talk to us, but her voice would just fade away- even though her mouth kept moving. When she came out of the fog (for a few seconds), she was pretty lucid, but it didn't last long. She has a morphine drip that she can control, but she was so far gone it didn't matter!

They did have her setting on the side of the bed for a while today. She is on oxygen. Her pupils are about the size of Abilene. She has movement (she was moving her arms quite a bit), but for no real reason.

Dad said she was fitfully anxious most of the day; she'd sleep for a few minutes, then wake up and look around frantically until she finally saw him. That happened throughout most of the day, so she's still quite disoriented-- for now.

We did look at the x-rays of the new knee, and it IS pretty invasive, but an engineering marvel. It does go quite deep into both bones, so hopefully it will heal quickly.

The doctor saw her today and said that if she continues to make progress, he'll probably move her out of ICU tomorrow. She seemed to feel no ill side effects (such as nausea) from the surgery.

We hope so!

All the gory details- mixed reviews...

It's 10:00 p.m., I just got out of a school board meeting, and have caught some mixed info about exactly what went on (and am a touch brain dead), but here's what I know...

They were ready to go at 5:30 a.m. for the surgery; Dad called me at 6:51 to tell me the scheduled time was for 2:00 p.m. (boy, was I glad I didn't take the day off). As it turned out, she went in about 11:00 a.m. My sister-in-law, Tamara, arrived about 10ish, so she got to see both of them before Mom went to surgery.

She didn't come out of surgery until around 3:00 p.m., so the surgery lasted much (MUCH) longer than had been anticipated, and it was even longer before the surgeon came out to visit with everyone. According to Tamara (Dad was asleep when I came in- don't blame him), the surgery was much more invasive and complicated than expected. There was a lot more damage than anticipated, and he removed a lot more bone and material than he had anticipated. Mom's right leg will probably be 1/4-inch shorter. There was a Plan A (go in with just a plastic joint replacement) and a Plan B (restructure the knee), but this required a Plan C which he wasn't entirely ready for, so that was the reason for the extra time. More parts were needed and they were placed deeper into the bones. There was more muscle, ligament, and nerve damage than anticipated, so that reconstruction part took longer as well. The doctor was not sure to what extent the nerve damage could be healed.

As the doctor visited with Tamara and Dad, Tamara was especially taken as to how he kept referring to "when" Mom would walk-- never "if." He was concerned with the left knee, which would not straighten out entirely, and said that, at some point, it would probably need surgery. He was concerned with the drop-foot, but said it was a matter of re-stretching the Achilles tendons, which we are sure will be a part of the therapy.

Therapy starts tomorrow. Since this doctor is a "complex joint replacement" specialist, we figure he and his therapy team know exactly what they're up against, so it shouldn't be any big deal, other than it's going to take a lot of therapy and she will probably be in the hospital a little longer (maybe 1 or 2 days) than expected.

They finally got to see her in recovery, and the first thing she said was, "I hurt." She's on a morphine pump that she can control herself; Tamara mentioned to the nurse that she was in pain and the nurse said, "not from the knee." Come to find out, they put a nerve block (kind of like a spinal they give to women in childbirth) from the knee on down, so basically the whole right leg was as if it were full of Novocaine... Tamara did remind her that she had other ailments, so the nurse showed her how to work that morphine pump.

She and Dad had some special moments together that both Tamara and the nurse noticed- whenever the nurse asked "how long have they been married," Tamara told her over 50 years. Mom overheard enough of the conversation and responded, "it will be 55 years on March 19th" (so she had a pretty good grasp of her faculties, so to speak). Tamara then teased her and said, "Yeah, she's put up with him for 55 years" to which Mom responded, "I've loved him for 55 years... no, actually, I've loved him for 73 years." Very special time for them to remember.

There will be several more days of pain and the therapy will not be fun, but Pam commented earlier that she felt Mom was in better shape both physically and mentally for this surgery than she was for the hip replacement that started this whole thing. So, hopefully, the recovery will go quicker.

Dad and Tamara both left the hospital about 6:30 after the nurses ran them out. She is spending the night in a highly-monitored area (but it's not ICU). I don't know what room she's in, but I'm sure it's temporary until tomorrow.

Bottom line- the doctor was concerned that it was worse than he thought and that the recovery may be longer, but he seemed confident that everything went very well and the surgery was very successful. I'll try to write more tomorrow night and keep everyone posted for a little while on how everything goes.

Tomorrow is "KNEE-DAY"!

I was waiting to post until I found out exactly what all the issues were and if they were resolved are not. The did pre-op on Monday and found an unusual "sound" in her left carotid artery. Enough that they decided to do a doppler test on Tuesday. Dad called about the results this morning and everything was fine.

They are currently in the Presby Hotel on the 9th floor of Dallas Presbyterian Hospital. Pre-surgery starts Thursday morning at 5:30 a.m.; all they will have to do is get up and go downstairs. We don't know when the surgery will be exactly. There is a possibility that the knee may only require a small cap; in that case, surgery should take 45 minutes or so. If there is other damage (and, honestly, that is what is anticipated), surgery will take around 2 hours.

Tamara is scheduled to come in sometime tomorrow to be around. I will re-post tomorrow night as soon as I know something and am able to post.

Everybody say an extra prayer tonight!

We have a date for the surgery...

March 12. This is following a March 9 appointment with all the doctors and the final pre-surgery checkups, etc. I think everyone is ready.

Pam and I both have been harping about the need for extra care by the anesthesiologist. I think this is a critical area that Mom has always had problems with, and I believe it caused her current condition. This is something we have told both Mom and Dad to mention STRONGLY when they go for pre-op appointments.

Otherwise, everything is going fine. Life in a nursing home has its own unique society, and it is one that Mom has had some experience with, just- fortunately- not directly with her or in her room. One "friend" she met there died over a month ago and one former roommate passed away just this past week. It paints a little different picture of everything; and a somber reminder that we want her to work hard and get her out as soon as possible.

Continue to keep her in your prayers as we get closer to - not D-day, but Knee-day: March 12.