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Annie
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Angie Zapata
Lighting a candle today in memory of Angie and all the other GLBT victims of hate crimes. It's time to realize that the hate needs to stop.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Husky torpedo!!
Hiya's, just a small update. The ribs are healing slowly (having a 40lb puppy torpedo you in the ribs hurts if you didn't know, be warned!). Mostly having pain when it's cold & rainy and bad aches when trying to sleep.
I go see a new Endo in April as the previous one refused to do the tests I asked of them, my GP (who rocks) ran the tests and found out my liver absorbs the pills way too much and could be the reason my estrogen levels were below what they should have been.
She's dumped the pills and put me on new patches till I go see the endo, these ones are HUUUUGE.
Annie, is still swamped so she's not posting much, she's also having sleep issues poor girl, she didn't realise how wiped this past year has made her. It's my birthday soon and I'm sending my doc a present of one of my photo's because if it hadn't been for her, I prob wouldn't be writing this right now.
Anyway, boss is due home shortly so gotta run lol
Later.
I go see a new Endo in April as the previous one refused to do the tests I asked of them, my GP (who rocks) ran the tests and found out my liver absorbs the pills way too much and could be the reason my estrogen levels were below what they should have been.
She's dumped the pills and put me on new patches till I go see the endo, these ones are HUUUUGE.
Annie, is still swamped so she's not posting much, she's also having sleep issues poor girl, she didn't realise how wiped this past year has made her. It's my birthday soon and I'm sending my doc a present of one of my photo's because if it hadn't been for her, I prob wouldn't be writing this right now.
Anyway, boss is due home shortly so gotta run lol
Later.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Happy New Year everyone
Yeah I know it's late, so sue me. Wait don't, I have no money.
So it's been a while but things have been crazy as you can imagine. The ribs are healing and almost no pain at all for a couple of weeks now, except when I have been asleep or sneeze or try to lift something I'm not ready for like my 35 pound puppy :/
I saw the surgeon and he said the scars look great, I noticed he wasn't worried about the dwarf vampire bites above my navel, claiming they were from the chest drains uh huh.
Last year we had more than our quota of bad things coming in threes so this year we are hoping to have a break please.. k? thanks.
Hope you all have a good year,I'm sure Annie will be back soon, well as soon as the tidal wave ebbs from work.
Be nice to each other, you just never know. I was lucky.
Claire
So it's been a while but things have been crazy as you can imagine. The ribs are healing and almost no pain at all for a couple of weeks now, except when I have been asleep or sneeze or try to lift something I'm not ready for like my 35 pound puppy :/
I saw the surgeon and he said the scars look great, I noticed he wasn't worried about the dwarf vampire bites above my navel, claiming they were from the chest drains uh huh.
Last year we had more than our quota of bad things coming in threes so this year we are hoping to have a break please.. k? thanks.
Hope you all have a good year,I'm sure Annie will be back soon, well as soon as the tidal wave ebbs from work.
Be nice to each other, you just never know. I was lucky.
Claire
Monday, November 10, 2008
Monday morning update
So, we're still in the intensive care unit. We were supposed to get the chest tubes out and leave ICU on saturday to go to a regular room. It might happen today, but they aren't really sure yet.
Apparently, when the doctor went into her chest, he found a lot more than he bargained for. The main tumor was about 8cm around, and had apparently been growing on her spinal area for many years, and just kicked into overdrive the last few. There is a large vessel that supplies between the arms and is the main source of the left emptying and apparently supplying the right. Over the years, secondary vessels have grown into place because that main vessel was completely inside the tumor. As the tumor grew, it compressed the vessel until she only had a pencil point opening. She never could hold her arms above her head for more than a minute but never gave that a second thought. She had terrible arm pain for the last 2 years (that was diagnosed incorrectly as cubital tunnel syndrome) that was miraculously cured for a few months early this year and again about 3 months ago when she was sick and got antibiotics. It baffled all the doctors involved as to why nerve pain would be affected by antibiotics, since the tumor wasn't near the nerve bunch for the shoulder. But now we know. The teratoma was infected when they took it out. Apparently, when it would get really bad, that tumor would swell around the vessel and clamp it down further. There was no way to safely remove the vessel from the tumor, and because the secondary support was in place, the doctor chose to remove it. As a result, Claire's left arm is terribly swollen (twice normal size) and her hand and fingers were swollen so much that the skin was super stretched, looking at least twice as big as normal. Her right shoulder (the source of all the pain before the surgery when the tumor was infected) has been hurting her pretty badly since the op. This morning, her fingers finally are starting to look normal, but there is still a lot of swelling in her arm. Dr. Smith said she'll probably need some therapy with her left arm.
There was a second tumor in her thymus gland. Apparently it was about the size of an egg. Both were removed and initial results from pathology indicate they are benign.
Because they've had to treat her for an OD of morphine (they discovered she's apparently allergic to it), she's been given a lower acting dug. The morphine caused her to be put back on the respirator once (they thought it was actually sedative related at the time) and then later when they moved her onto morphine from something else, she fell asleep and stopped breathing. They gave her Narcan to counteract the Morphine at that point realized that she can't tolerate the morphine. The pain relief now isn't really isn't touching her pain when she moves, coughs, or takes a deep breath. That is making it excruciating for her to try and do breathing exercises and walk around, so we're way behind schedule on chest tube removal. We're also at really high risk for a bad case of pneumonia still. Once the chest tubes come out, her pain will decrease, but it's a catch 22. Until the pain abates a little, she really is under-functioning right now. They are continuing antibiotics to try to prevent sepsis (from the infected tumor) and pneumonia.
They have her off the saline now, and her blood pressure is somewhat normalized finally, so now we'll have to see how she does trying to eat and drink on her own.
They are being wonderful and letting Kiddo and I stay around the clock in the ICU. I'm sure the fact that we're both trained as first responders helps our case, but it's also critical for panic control for Claire, who is still very afraid to sleep now. As I write this, she's sleeping lightly beside me. They are about to sit her up and see if she can get the tubes out in about 10 minutes.
Annie
Apparently, when the doctor went into her chest, he found a lot more than he bargained for. The main tumor was about 8cm around, and had apparently been growing on her spinal area for many years, and just kicked into overdrive the last few. There is a large vessel that supplies between the arms and is the main source of the left emptying and apparently supplying the right. Over the years, secondary vessels have grown into place because that main vessel was completely inside the tumor. As the tumor grew, it compressed the vessel until she only had a pencil point opening. She never could hold her arms above her head for more than a minute but never gave that a second thought. She had terrible arm pain for the last 2 years (that was diagnosed incorrectly as cubital tunnel syndrome) that was miraculously cured for a few months early this year and again about 3 months ago when she was sick and got antibiotics. It baffled all the doctors involved as to why nerve pain would be affected by antibiotics, since the tumor wasn't near the nerve bunch for the shoulder. But now we know. The teratoma was infected when they took it out. Apparently, when it would get really bad, that tumor would swell around the vessel and clamp it down further. There was no way to safely remove the vessel from the tumor, and because the secondary support was in place, the doctor chose to remove it. As a result, Claire's left arm is terribly swollen (twice normal size) and her hand and fingers were swollen so much that the skin was super stretched, looking at least twice as big as normal. Her right shoulder (the source of all the pain before the surgery when the tumor was infected) has been hurting her pretty badly since the op. This morning, her fingers finally are starting to look normal, but there is still a lot of swelling in her arm. Dr. Smith said she'll probably need some therapy with her left arm.
There was a second tumor in her thymus gland. Apparently it was about the size of an egg. Both were removed and initial results from pathology indicate they are benign.
Because they've had to treat her for an OD of morphine (they discovered she's apparently allergic to it), she's been given a lower acting dug. The morphine caused her to be put back on the respirator once (they thought it was actually sedative related at the time) and then later when they moved her onto morphine from something else, she fell asleep and stopped breathing. They gave her Narcan to counteract the Morphine at that point realized that she can't tolerate the morphine. The pain relief now isn't really isn't touching her pain when she moves, coughs, or takes a deep breath. That is making it excruciating for her to try and do breathing exercises and walk around, so we're way behind schedule on chest tube removal. We're also at really high risk for a bad case of pneumonia still. Once the chest tubes come out, her pain will decrease, but it's a catch 22. Until the pain abates a little, she really is under-functioning right now. They are continuing antibiotics to try to prevent sepsis (from the infected tumor) and pneumonia.
They have her off the saline now, and her blood pressure is somewhat normalized finally, so now we'll have to see how she does trying to eat and drink on her own.
They are being wonderful and letting Kiddo and I stay around the clock in the ICU. I'm sure the fact that we're both trained as first responders helps our case, but it's also critical for panic control for Claire, who is still very afraid to sleep now. As I write this, she's sleeping lightly beside me. They are about to sit her up and see if she can get the tubes out in about 10 minutes.
Annie
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Coming to you live from the ICU...
Claire is responding well to the neosynephrine to raise her blood pressure and is tolerating the demerol nicely. Although she's not getting the amount of pain relief she would with morphine, she is breathing on her own, and she's pretty sure that's a good thing.
They got her out of bed and made her sit up for 45 minutes, and had her breathing using a little machine that measures inhalations. Being the tenacious Brit that she is, she has the staff trained already to try to give ME the jobs that result in her griping. Current count of nurses called mean, sadistic or "just not nice" now up to 4. She's hitting the 500 mark on the breathing machine, and she should be doing 1000-1500 if fully healthy. It's not bad, but she definitely is behind the curve a bit due to the two lost days. She states simply that she's "never really been one for sports, and I'm sure MODERN hospitals have a computer that can do this for me..."
Although the "reclining" chair kept trying to (quite noisily) eat me all night, and they have the room at sub-arctic standards, it helped her a lot knowing she had someone here, and wasn't afraid to try to go to sleep. She did sleep in short spurts, and I think I got a whopping 2 hours of sleep. I did get to smuggle cookies in yesterday evening and hoard them, which turned out to be a good thing at 2am when there was no hospital food to snitch from the unsuspecting patient. In an attempt to not trigger the chair's hunger, I learned just how small of a ball I can curl up in to sleep.
Hopes are high that our superwoman will be able to have her chest tubes removed today. Informed sources state that she should find her pain decreased by 30%-50% once that is accomplished.
They got her out of bed and made her sit up for 45 minutes, and had her breathing using a little machine that measures inhalations. Being the tenacious Brit that she is, she has the staff trained already to try to give ME the jobs that result in her griping. Current count of nurses called mean, sadistic or "just not nice" now up to 4. She's hitting the 500 mark on the breathing machine, and she should be doing 1000-1500 if fully healthy. It's not bad, but she definitely is behind the curve a bit due to the two lost days. She states simply that she's "never really been one for sports, and I'm sure MODERN hospitals have a computer that can do this for me..."
Although the "reclining" chair kept trying to (quite noisily) eat me all night, and they have the room at sub-arctic standards, it helped her a lot knowing she had someone here, and wasn't afraid to try to go to sleep. She did sleep in short spurts, and I think I got a whopping 2 hours of sleep. I did get to smuggle cookies in yesterday evening and hoard them, which turned out to be a good thing at 2am when there was no hospital food to snitch from the unsuspecting patient. In an attempt to not trigger the chair's hunger, I learned just how small of a ball I can curl up in to sleep.
Hopes are high that our superwoman will be able to have her chest tubes removed today. Informed sources state that she should find her pain decreased by 30%-50% once that is accomplished.
2:15 am sunday, update
Hi all, posting from the ICU. Thanks for all the prayers and thoughts. I'm in a calmer place now.
They allowed me to spend the night in the ICU to act as Claire's anti-anxiety med. Kiddo is at home, snuggling with puppies and resting.
Claire was finally given the clear to test demerol in her system at 12:30 this morning. blood pressure is now stable in the 92/45 - 99/49 range, and she is finally getting some sleep. She was terrified to let herself fall asleep because she's now afraid she'll stop breathing. If this doesn't get her over her gigantic medical phobia, I don't know what will. Talk about facing down some serious damn demons.
So, she's been on nothing but Tylenol for about 8 hours, and it was really taking its toll. It also meant that trying to get her to stand and walk has been impossible. The plan is to give her more demerol later his morning and attempt just that.
She has pneumonia starting in both lungs. Not totally unexpected. However, I was told that the teratoma the doc removed was very infected, and she's at very high risk for sepsis. They are treating her with broad spectrum antibiotics to try to counter both. Her shoulder is in terrible pain, where we think the teratoma was interfering with nerves in her arm before. The resection turned out to be a lot worse on her than imagined.
Thank god she went through with it.
Looks like we're probably looking at another full day in the ICU. Claire has had little moments of letting her humor surface, like when she looked at Kiddo today and said "Nope. I don't think I'm escaping on Monday." Not much, but for a girl that is stark raving terrified of the hospital and hasn't had any anti-anxiety meds, I'm pretty pleased.
I've been watching her breathe for 2 hours straight and I'm running out of steam. Going to curl up in a little ball in this chair beside the bed and try to nap.
Thank again everyone. Much love to you.
Annie
They allowed me to spend the night in the ICU to act as Claire's anti-anxiety med. Kiddo is at home, snuggling with puppies and resting.
Claire was finally given the clear to test demerol in her system at 12:30 this morning. blood pressure is now stable in the 92/45 - 99/49 range, and she is finally getting some sleep. She was terrified to let herself fall asleep because she's now afraid she'll stop breathing. If this doesn't get her over her gigantic medical phobia, I don't know what will. Talk about facing down some serious damn demons.
So, she's been on nothing but Tylenol for about 8 hours, and it was really taking its toll. It also meant that trying to get her to stand and walk has been impossible. The plan is to give her more demerol later his morning and attempt just that.
She has pneumonia starting in both lungs. Not totally unexpected. However, I was told that the teratoma the doc removed was very infected, and she's at very high risk for sepsis. They are treating her with broad spectrum antibiotics to try to counter both. Her shoulder is in terrible pain, where we think the teratoma was interfering with nerves in her arm before. The resection turned out to be a lot worse on her than imagined.
Thank god she went through with it.
Looks like we're probably looking at another full day in the ICU. Claire has had little moments of letting her humor surface, like when she looked at Kiddo today and said "Nope. I don't think I'm escaping on Monday." Not much, but for a girl that is stark raving terrified of the hospital and hasn't had any anti-anxiety meds, I'm pretty pleased.
I've been watching her breathe for 2 hours straight and I'm running out of steam. Going to curl up in a little ball in this chair beside the bed and try to nap.
Thank again everyone. Much love to you.
Annie
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Scare of a lifetime
On the way home from hospital to take care of dogs. Kiddo was still at the hospital in waiting room. 8 miles out, phone rings, it's kiddo.
"Mom, you need to get back here."
"Is something wrong?"
"Yes, mum just CODED"
Cue hyperventilation. Cue manic exit off highway and reentry, driving code 3 minus the fire truck. Get back to the hospital, run in the door, up to the 2nd floor, find out that she had apparently OD'd on morphine, because her blood pressure was low and she had an unknown sensitivity to morphine. So she went to sleep and stopped breathing.
They caught her fast, bagged her and brought her back up. My daughter, the paramedic, was distraught. Apparently the priest on duty decided that rather than telling kiddo what actually happened, he decided to tell her that she "coded, and I don't know anything else, so please wait nearby and I'll be back".
Then they take Kiddo back to see that her mum is fine, but kick her right back out of the ICU while they work on her, while Claire gives her a scared "where are you going??" look.
Kiddo loses it. Runs to the bathroom and throws up. Meanwhile, I've been let into the ICU and am with Claire, but I can't get Kiddo back in and can't leave. So Kiddo is out there sobbing until I can break free enough to at least text her from the ICU that mum is ok. For an hour I send her text messages of what's happening until my phone dies. Then I tell the nurse that I have to go take care of the animals and can Kiddo take my place? Of course, they answer. No problem.
So now, with a BP of 81/40 or so, them unable to reintroduce IV painkillers (Claire has every rib cut open with just Tylenol now) they make the call to transfuse to raise her pressure. Apparently, according to Kiddo's message from the ICU, they're giving her packed cells.
I'm on my way back to the hospital, now that dogs have had food, water, and relief.
During the surgery, by the way, apparently they discovered that the tumor had invaded a large vein or the vena cava (I don't have all the details) and that vascular repair had to be done. She may need some rehab to help her arm after this surgery as well.
It's getting a little rough right now. Is it okay to admit I'm scared?
Annie
"Mom, you need to get back here."
"Is something wrong?"
"Yes, mum just CODED"
Cue hyperventilation. Cue manic exit off highway and reentry, driving code 3 minus the fire truck. Get back to the hospital, run in the door, up to the 2nd floor, find out that she had apparently OD'd on morphine, because her blood pressure was low and she had an unknown sensitivity to morphine. So she went to sleep and stopped breathing.
They caught her fast, bagged her and brought her back up. My daughter, the paramedic, was distraught. Apparently the priest on duty decided that rather than telling kiddo what actually happened, he decided to tell her that she "coded, and I don't know anything else, so please wait nearby and I'll be back".
Then they take Kiddo back to see that her mum is fine, but kick her right back out of the ICU while they work on her, while Claire gives her a scared "where are you going??" look.
Kiddo loses it. Runs to the bathroom and throws up. Meanwhile, I've been let into the ICU and am with Claire, but I can't get Kiddo back in and can't leave. So Kiddo is out there sobbing until I can break free enough to at least text her from the ICU that mum is ok. For an hour I send her text messages of what's happening until my phone dies. Then I tell the nurse that I have to go take care of the animals and can Kiddo take my place? Of course, they answer. No problem.
So now, with a BP of 81/40 or so, them unable to reintroduce IV painkillers (Claire has every rib cut open with just Tylenol now) they make the call to transfuse to raise her pressure. Apparently, according to Kiddo's message from the ICU, they're giving her packed cells.
I'm on my way back to the hospital, now that dogs have had food, water, and relief.
During the surgery, by the way, apparently they discovered that the tumor had invaded a large vein or the vena cava (I don't have all the details) and that vascular repair had to be done. She may need some rehab to help her arm after this surgery as well.
It's getting a little rough right now. Is it okay to admit I'm scared?
Annie
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