Hi everyone, it's Cathy..
It's been 3 weeks tonight since the stoke and blinding of her left eye....
Sorry for the delay in updates with mom. We have had 2-3 doctor appt a week for the last 2 weeks and I decided to wait till we got thru them all to send an update. Mom is doing as good as she can be for now. Still no change in he vision and she is still not to good on her feet with walking yet. She seems to do okay around the condo but anywhere else is alittle challenging. She had her first trip out today to Walmart (some place other than a doctors office). thank god for shopping carts to hold on to! She made it around the entire store while we waited for some of her prescriptions to be filled. Her blood pressure has been alittle to high off and on the last week. Could be due the stress of all the doctors to see and partly from the carotid surgery too.
Here is the play by play...
The vascular doctor who did the carotid surgery said the incision looked great and was heeling nicely. She is still experiencing dull headaches but may be caused from the overall trauma from the surgery. Should get better over time. He told her she is able to drive based on what they eye doctor feels is best.
The eye doctor said there is bleeding in the left (bad) eye now and was probably caused from the carotid surgery. She went back this past Monday for round 1 of a 2 part laser surgery on the eye. He said the eye will start to regenerate new vessels in the eye which is bad due to no blood flow and what blood it will create is bad blood and can become like a toxin and damage the eye further. he has decided the laser surgery to fix some of the issues was the best route to go. This will not help her to regain any vision in the eye but will help prevent other major issues within the eye. Two trips to him so far and a 3rd scheduled for 3-2-09. He feels she isn't ready to drive at this point. That her surgery site has to be very well healed and she needs to be able to turn her neck all the way and fast if need be before she should attempt to drive a car. At that point she can try drive with someone, not alone on short trips to get use to her new eye sight. This will be away's down the road still. She needs to be able to get out of the car without getting dizzy an able to way more stable before she gets back into the car again.
Went to see the thumb doctor for a follow up from the removal of the glumous tumor under her thumb nail which surgery was exactly a week before the stoke. The tumor was cancerous but he said they did remove all of it. So no further treatment at this time. She will just have to watch for any other signs of them on the other fingers.
Today we went to the family doctor for her normal 3 month follow up and blood work and sugar levels. Should have the results in a couple days. She reviewed her meds and said it is normal for the BP to go either up or down due to the surgery but it is important to get it under control. She will try a few things to get it back down to a normal range over the next week.
Thanks to everyone for all the cards and calls! We laughed.. one day she had received '11' cards! For those of you that know the story behind the '11''s... in mom's world! We came out of one of the doctor appts and it was.. 11:11am, we stopped for lunch and when we got back in the car it was 1:11pm! Scary :)
She has been trying to laid down between 8-9pm nightly to get her strength back. She has been wearing a patch while she watched TV and makes her good eye tired and gives her headaches. She also has been taking an afternoon nap too each day. If you call and she doesn't answer don't panic, leave her a message and she will call you back when she is up again. It is still alittle difficult for her to hold the phone with her neck for long periods of time. She calls me each day when she gets up and before she goes to bed. I give her "well being" phone call checks too every 6-8 hrs :) I have been there 3-4 days out of the week for the last two weeks and she is slowly getting better at her normal daily routines.
I will try to update everyone weekly from this point on with how she is improving and any funny situations we experience! You know mom, no two days are the same.
The prayers have done wonders, keep them going for a speedy recovery :)
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