| Subject: venting inside---> |
Author:
chrystynne
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 17:43:03 08/25/03 Mon
In reply to:
chrystynne
's message, "hiya!" on 17:26:51 08/25/03 Mon
here's something serious.
we're gonna be suing my sister's cardiologist.
when she was born, she had a heart defect, she had a hole in her heart. i think it's called PDA, pulsus ductus artereosus. anyway, in high school here, she still had it so they had her off P.E. several months ago, she started having chest pain. she then had a transesophageal echocardiogram to see how the defect was and it turned out ok. the hole closed on its own. she continued to have chest pain so the cardiologist did a cardiac cath. she developed a blood clot which made it painful to walk and you couldn't palpate the pulse on her foot.
she had to go and have surgery because of the blood clot. she went for a saphenous vein bypass graft because the artery was clotted off big-time. it worked in the beginning but her circulation was still bad and her leg still hurt. her leg was hurting because the blood vessels were going into spasms because of the bad blood flow. she literally couldn't walk too far.
on the 15, she had a R aorto-femoral bypass /c supplemental fem-pop, harvest of femoral vein on the 15th. just imagine an incision in your belly about 12 inches long and another incision from your groin down to your kneee---that's how extensive it was. they took her to surgery at 7am and they got her to a room at 5pm only to go back to surgery at 8:30pm because she developed, can you believe it? compartment syndrome and had to go for an emergency fasciotomy. that's when the pressure within your tissues elevates compromising your circulation making the limb harder and painful as hell. from that, she had 2 3inch long open incisions on both sides of her calf.
she was in the close observation for 4 days. then they transferred her to a medical floor.
anyway, this whole experience made me realize that i can't be a private nurse or a coach, LOL. i've got that "suck-it-up" mentality and my poor sister's pain threshold is soooo low that she cries just for blood draws! i feel terrible because i'm powerless when it comes to protecting her from all this. i also feel terrible because i want her to be stronger, to just suck it up and that's not fair.
the cardiologist is being sued because the cardiac cath should not have been done because of my sister's age and condition. there really wasn't a dire, emergent need to do it but the cardiologist went ahead. it was all sudden. we just found out that she was having it done. she didn't even get the chance to get a 2nd opinion and she could've gotten a pulmonologist consult to see if her chest pain was respiratory-related. when i read the cardiac cath report recently, the doctor used 4 different-sized catheters on her.
basically, she tried one, took it out. tried another, took it out and so on and so forth. no wonder she developed a blood clot. also, i don't recall her getting plavix or something to keep her from clotting when she was sent home. when developed a knot in her groin area which she's had for months, she was told by the nurse that it's "normal".
anyway, my mom told me that she should be going home tomorrow or the next day.last week, she got pneumonia and a urinary tract infection. i joshed that she's surely checking off her list of complications, LOL!
they were able to stitch up her fasciotomy sites manually. poor kid went through agony when they were doing that day by day. they were basically forcing the big open wound together with their hands day-by-day. mind you, she was awake when they did that. thankfully, it worked and she won't have to go for a skin graft which we were afraid that she would have to go through today. from what i understand, the pain would be ten times worse.
she's walking with a walker and i really started thinking of god. i was an ortho RN for >2yrs and the experience has proven valuable. it made me think that you go through experiences for a reason, like this was all in god's plan?
another drama in our life is my baby sister who is going through a rough patch in her marriage. she's giving him a second chance but it looks like the divorce will happen.
i swear there's too much drama in our life. can my family just have a boring, mundane life for a change? challenges like these add flava to life but hey, a bland life every now and then wouldn't hurt.;>
i'm okay, although i got sick on her 5th day postop. my dad and bro were sick prior and i guess we were sharing our germs, LOL! it didn't help that that i wasn't really taking care of myself. i couldn't sleep or eat in the hospital where i would stay and watch her. it felt so unnatural. i think my brain associates hospitals with work thus making it difficult for me to relax.
i keep on telling myself that my family is due for better days. i just need to start believing it.
thank you for letting me vent!!! :)
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 