Lorraine doesn’t feel up to writing anything this week. She still has trouble writing her thoughts down on paper or her computer and doesn’t want to force herself again, its pretty hard for her. But she does want to thank everyone for their prayers and well wishes for her recovery. She does try to read her facebook account and keep up with what’s happening but it overwhelms her some days.
5/3/15 Chuck’s report
I mentioned to Lorraine today that it just doesn’t seem right, we haven’t seen Katie as much this week for one reason or another. Her dad is teaching an afterschool class at her school most days this week so we haven’t picked her up like usual when we are here. And then she was feeling poorly on Wednesday so she stayed from school on Thursday and Friday. They took her to the doctor and found she has picked up a virus, she has even given it to Susy. We’ll probably get back to normal with Katie this week.
We asked for and was given an extension to stay here at the Elks for longer than the posted two week maximum due to Lorraine having therapy. But the extension runs out this week so we have to move out for three days then we can move back for another two weeks. Guess it’s to insure folks don’t make this their permanent home like some of the folks we see in campgrounds. Even at that, we see some of the same folks almost every time we are here so it’s almost like they’re permanent. They leave for a few days then return back for two weeks and have been doing that for a couple of years. The bad economy we’ve had over the past few years has sure effected lots of folks in a negative way. Some of these folks have lost their houses and their rig is the only home they have left now.
To add to our worries, we receive a call from the gal who rents our house Monday night. She was out of town but got a call that there had been a fire in the house. Luckily the damage was mostly contained to one bedroom and we’ve pretty much had to let the insurance company handle everything as we can’t travel up there until we get further along with Lorraine’s recovery. Thanks to Lorraine’s sister, Thelma, niece Kerri and Susy’s good friend Mandy for going out to see if they could get us any info that afternoon/evening.
Lorraine has been going out for speech therapy twice a week now and I can see steady improvement. She is handling everyday actions pretty well too although once in awhile she will ask for help but quickly gets back on track. The therapist continues to say she is hoping for complete recovery but it may take awhile. She does give Lorraine homework to do on the days she doesn’t go to their office. She has progressed to much more advanced reading and comprehension on her homework.
Other than that, this had turned out to be a fairly normal week for us until Friday. This is when Lorraine had her appointment with the specialist to run a camera/catheter from the vein in her leg all the way to her brain. Like I mentioned last week, this was only for diagnostic information, he didn’t intend to do anything other than gather info in case of any further work she may need. Her appointment was set for 10:30 but they wanted her there an hour early to get her prepped for the procedure.
The nurse had some trouble getting the IV started, they needed it to keep her hydrated and for a place to inject the sedative. Finally they brought in a different nurse and he was able to get it going. Sometimes that can be the worst part of a procedure and this time it was no fun for Lorraine. And of course the doctor was running behind time and she didn’t get to the exam room until right around noon, an hour and half late.
I believe this is the 16th time Lorraine has been put under for some sort of surgery or medical procedure but believe me, it doesn’t get easier the more times we go through it. Its really tough to see her leave and have to wait until I can see her again in the recovery room. I sure hate to see her go through this kind of stuff but it’s necessary.
The procedure lasted for just under an hour then she was brought back to the prep/recovery room and they came to get me from the waiting room. She was told not to move her right leg for at least 1 1/2 hours after the procedure as they wanted to make sure she didn’t disturb the site where the camera/catheter was inserted. They put some sort of plug in the vein and sewed in a stitch there after they were done. Her body will absorb the plug and stitch over the next three months or so and she will have a small scar to go along with all the others she has endured.
She was not asleep for this procedure and was able to tell me most of what happened in the exam room. She said she really saw explosive white lights when the doctor injected the contrast directly into the veins in her brain. The doctor told her numerous times to don’t move and hold your breath as they left the room to take an x-ray. She said she felt pain when they removed the instruments and inserted the plug and took the stitch. And it was hard to keep her leg perfectly still for 90 minutes.
After Lorraine had been in the recovery room for about two hours the doctor came by to give us his findings. He said the procedure when well but he did find two aneurysms or ballooning of two veins in her brain. He talked about aneurysms and how they form and what can happen if they rupture. He also discussed different options to handle aneurysms. Option one was to do nothing but watch it over time, two was to cut a hole in her skull and put clamps on each one, three was to work from inside the vein and fill the aneurysm with a platinum coil.
We discussed the different options and he suggested the best course of action would be option three. She would have to admitted to the hospital for these procedures for an overnight stay. To insert the coil into the aneurysm he would do basically the same thing he did Friday, access the femur artery in her leg and insert a camera, catheter and a tube with the coil. Once in place, he would place the coil and allow it to fill the aneurysm so the blood flow is altered enough so the slower flow will allow a clot to form (and hopefully stay) inside the aneurysm. This clotted aneurysm resists the entry of liquid blood and should help minimize the later possibility of a rupture.
Unfortunately he can not do both of these repairs in one exam so it looks like she will have one repaired in a couple of weeks and the second one maybe a month later. And he will want to do follow up angiograms in 6 months, one year, three years and five years after. I’ve been doing some research online and even found a U-tube movie of one being inserted, pretty neat what the doctors can do now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjOc3Zpv2K8
Of course, as with any medical procedure, there is a chance of problems during and after. But the doctor told us the numbers, I don’t remember exactly but they are pretty small. And the research online agrees with him. In fact, I saw the doctor’s name on one site as being one of the foremost surgeons doing this procedure, that was good. We both liked the doctor and this sort of reinforced our opinion of him. He is very forthcoming, upfront and answered all our questions. Of course, being as we didn’t know much about this ahead of time, I have some questions for him when we go back for the pre-op visit.
This doctor also said these two aneurysms could have been the cause of both of her previous strokes. He said her arteries didn’t show hardly any plak buildup, in fact, her carotid arteries looked like what he would see with an 18 year old. We sure would like to know for sure but are getting different “causes” from different sources. But whatever, we are sure hoping this will keep her from having any more episodes. We are also glad she is on the aspirin and Plavix therapy that she should have been on since her earlier episode back in Nov. 2012. And of course, we are really looking forward to getting to the end of all this medical stuff for awhile.
After the doctor left Lorraine started getting ready to leave and head back home. She got dressed, signed the papers and they wheeled her out in a wheel car. Once we got home I got her something to eat and she pretty much rested the rest of the day. It will take awhile for this news to sink in and become a reality but we’re getting there. Lorraine was really tired and ready to go to bed earlier than usual, no surprise there. She said she slept well that night too, yea.
Yesterday we just hung around the rig taking it easy. Susy isn’t feeling well, she’s picked up the bug, so we didn’t see her or Katie. We did go out for a short walk in the nice weather but didn’t go too far, slowly building up to normal may take a couple of days yet.
The weather this week has been pretty nice once again, it even got up to the low 90s a couple of days. Except for it being California with the high prices, taxes and way too many people, this area could be on our short list of places to land when we get off the road. It would really be nice to be near Susy and Katie as she grows up.
Like I said, we will be leaving here for three days every two weeks until we are done with this round of medical work for her and will continue with her speech therapy also. Other than that, our travel plans are really on hold for the future. But it is good to exercise and drive the rig vs letting it sit too long. Even though this place has a sewer dump instead of one at each site, our neighbor has enough sewer hose to allow us to dump our black tank without driving over so the rig hasn’t been moved since we got here the last week of March. Maybe I’m trying to put lipstick on a pig by trying to say that moving every two weeks a good thing, ha.
No pictures to add this week so will close this down and post it.
Thanks Chuck
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