Last night my Mother almost died

Last night I almost lost my Mother. Two times in the last week and a half, my Mother vomited blood and was sent to Critical Care. Since she didn't bleed while she was there, she was sent home undiagnosed.

Friday night she vomited blood again and was hospitalized a third time. They apparently saw no urgency in her condition and subsequently didn't bother to perform any diagnostic procedures until after lunch the next day.

This time before they could complete the upper endoscopy, my Mother had a major bleed. It seems a weakened blood vessel outside the upper stomach ruptured. They now knew she had Dieulafoy disease.

They were unable to stop her bleeding. She lost two-thirds of her blood in a matter of hours. My Mother was dying.

The surgeon was forced to perform a complete gastrotomy ( I think that's what it's called)
She no longer has any stomach at all. She is on a ventilator and as soon as she builds up a little strength, an other surgery will be performed to connect a piece of her intestines for a makeshift stomach.

It will be three to six months before she can eat solids again. I must be strong to help my Mother with her long road to recovery. She could be hospitalized for an entire month.

Yesterday was the hardest day of my life. I came close to fainting more then once because it was all so unexpected and drastic

We were informed my Mother's odds of surviving surgery weren't very good. But the moment the doctor told us she'd pulled through, I sank down on my knees sobbing tears of relief and thanking God.

Yesterday I was given a miracle and at least for now, I still have my Mother.

Wow, Dollmonster, I'm so sorry to hear about your mother. I'll send positive vibes your way and keep thoughts of your mother in my heart.

My mother is here visiting me now, I'll be sure to give her a few extra hugs before she flies out on Tuesday.


-grapes

Are you trying to cultivate a discussion on the conspiracy of ineptitude in the medical profession, or are you hoping to discuss the power of prayer as it relates to medicine?

Which conspiracy, exactly, is this thread aiming for?

As to the first possibility, I've seen people die in the ER, sitting in the waiting room. I've taken a few people there, sat for hours, and gotten a piss-poor diagnosis for my trouble.

I'm not a doctor, but I have access to the literature thanks to online, and it doesn't take a genius to catalogue symptoms and match them up to illness descriptions. If I can do it, why can't the ER doctors? Don't their departments have enough funding for advanced diagnostic tools? Don't the hospitals have enough money for adequate staff? Well, no, unfortunately. That's only part of it though.

I took a former girlfriend to the ER once, and sat with her for FOUR and a half hours while she writhed in obvious, serious pain. The receptionist looked at us like a librarian looks at a marching band passing through the periodicals. I wanted to leap over the counter and slap this woman in the face just to test for functioning emotions, but I didn't. Because while you can't get a doctor to SAVE YOUR LIFE in the ER, there's always a goddamn cop around somehwere nearby. At least in my experience.

I had my girlfriend very obviously in a heap of discomfort, and this stopped me from doing anything, but I desperately wanted to. I go and sit back down, to wait for a while longer. We finally get to see a doctor, he asks her some questions. He nods knowingly and tells her it's stress.

We don't bellieve him, but we want to, so we go home. Same thing goes in waves for another couple of weeks, literally debilitating this girl for hours or DAYS at a time. It's not freakin' stress, unless stress got a lot more stressful since I last experienced the condition.

We go to a DIFFERENT ER in the same city, the wait wasn't nearly as long but the answer was the same, and the doctor spoke the language so poorly we had to strain to decipher of what he was saying. He assured her it was stress, and told her to drink some herbal tea, or eat a root, I don't remember.

We go away, and over the next 3 days it gets a lot worse. I started really believing it was psycho-somatic, and having the backup of TWO 'professional' opinions, I try to wiesel out of taking her to the ER again. She ends up making an emergency appointment with a real doctor, and she gets her mother to drive her to the appointment. I tell her it's all in her head, and she's becoming a hypochondriac (sp?), that didn't go over too well.

I can now see, that if I was in her place, in terrible pain, and somebody told me it was all in my head, I would be very upset. To say the least.

Anyway, the girl goes to the real doctor, and he sends her around to two different specialists. She ends up half a week later with a proper diagnosis (a nasty ulcer combined with stones), and gets the help she needs (an operation and a low calcium diet). The pain vanishes.

The hurt remained though. She was rightly honked off at all the people who told her it was all in her head, and that included me. If she had listened to the ER doctors, or me, or her friends, who all said it was stress, it would have been very, very bad.

Thank God for real doctors, eh? They don't prompt your signifigant other to resent you endlessly by dishing out crap advice.

The ER is useless everywhere I've been, bottom line. It has proven, in my case, to be hazardous to your health and even your relationships with loved ones.

I hope I didn't take the thread off topic, but not knowing exactly what the topic was, I take no responsibility.

Glad your story has a happy ending like mine.

(I broke up with that girl, who was a drama queen regardless of injury)

Best wishes for your mother and your family. hang in there.

I know just what you're going through. Earlier this year, my father went to get something to eat for dinner, came home and my mother was laying on the floor in the bathroom. She had Septic Shock, MRSA, and Pneumonia all at the same time. The chances of surviving Septic Shock once you are as sick as she was when she was admitted to the hospital are about 10%. The doctors initially told us 50/50, but when we spoke to a nurse that has seen people going through it, she told us it's more like 10%. She had 14 IV lines at one point and was in a med induced coma for two weeks. She was in the ICU for three weeks, spent another week in a regular ward, then 10 days in a rehab hospital, then 6 weeks doing outpatient therapy.

Keep up the good thoughts, find friends or family that can act as a support group, and don't hesitate to u2u me if you need to.

Postive thoughts to you dollmaster. And prayers as well.

Big hug dude....the universe has a funny way of working things out....good luck and keep strong.

Hang in there, I have had to watch a family member almost die due to illness and its very hard,

But my advice to you is also take care of yourself, Make sure you eat and drink well, It can take so much out of you, Try and rest as much as you can, and also make sure you have a night out with friends,

The more rest you get the more you can handle the hurdles that come before you,

I wish your mother well and you also

Wow! Yes, that's one of the scariest things that can happen -- and it's happened a number of times in my life. As Asla so wisely said, take care of yourself -- and you might also find someone to talk to (counselor or other trusted person that you can just ...vent... at)

You can't help if you're on the edge.


...sending warm vibes your way.

[edit on 26-9-2005 by Byrd]