Friday, October 10, 2008

home from the hospital...

i haven't been blogging lately...in fact, i haven't been knitting much lately...we have just had a 10-day ordeal in UIHC when my dh went in for a total (left)hip replacement on wed Sep 24...we knew, because of his DISH syndrome(his bones build extra bone tissue) that the intubation(breathing tube prep) would be difficult...his skeleton system has so much extra bone that it is fused in places, two of which are his neck/lower back...so he cannot bend his head back for the anesthesia team to intubate easily...in addition to the immobility, the opening in his throat was very small...it took 40+ minutes just for this to be done...
the hip surgery went well...the tube was left in for an extra day for the swelling to go down and prevent a re-intubation...that raised his high anxiety even higher and started the delay in a normal recovery... after 2 days in SICU he was moved to the orthopedic floor where he started to retain fluid, his blood pressure fell, and breathing became an issue along w/his heart pumping function...back up to SICU and iv lascis starting removing some fluid...he was followed by renal(kidney), cardiac(heart), respiratory(breathing), orthopedic(hip) and internal medicine teams... we should have included the psychic dept for the drs/nurses to understand how to treat someone w/high anxiety-panic disorder and DISH...i had to 'educate' everyone on those two medical issues the whole time...
while in SICU they put a Cpap mask on him at night and restrained him...and did NOT call me at home to come in after he repeated requested me...that was the really bad move on the hospital's part and i certainly let them know it... the night nurse told my husband she called me but did not! he was fearful the rest of the time in the hospital.
after stabalizing he was again moved to the ortho floor and i had to re-educate the nursing staff about his two conditions...i stayed in his room for 5 days...he did have some caring nurses there...
after a heart and kidney ultrasound, some physical therapy he was up walking enough for them to discharge them, but WITHOUT his pain med prescription! i had to make a trip back to the hospital to personally get the narcotic prescription to get filled...it did cause some family dissent...mostly due to my totally exhaustion & the other presciptions being taken to the wrong pharmacy by a family member trying to help! we certainly did not need that on the day we were going home friday Oct 3!!
all-in-all, things now are going well w/home health care nurse, PT and OT visits to our home!

1 comment:

tandemsandy said...

oh hun hope things are getting better you have had a bad time. Love and hugs to you both.