The Sick Room

[Addie]

My father said he started getting back pain when he was getting older so he goes monthly to get a massage. It's quite interesting because there are many ways to get a lower back massage. I started doing now so I have a lower chance of getting back pains when I am younger.

Unfortunately for me, I let my back pain out of control. So now I am on pain medication on an as needed for pain. My sympathies to those who suffer from it.

Today I came home rather late from the hospital. They try to get you out before noon. For me it was four o'clock. The doctors were bickering over whether I should stay the extra night for the next surgery or go home and they could schedule when the next one will be. They are concerned with my BP. It seemed the longer they kept me there, the higher my BP would go.

They did the first surgery on Friday, and the second one on Saturday. At least they sent me home with enough pain medication. And for that I am grateful. It seems the pain only happens when it gets so bad that it will wake me from a deep sleep. I am already an hour past when I should be taking the next dose. But fortunately I am not having any pain at the moment. I am fortunately one of those folks who take pain meds only when I really need them. Like for a migraine headache. I am hoping that when I do go to sleep, the pain won't happen. So I can sleep right through it. Here it is 2 a.m., Sunday and I have been awake since they woke me up for breakfast. I should crash in about two hours.

They still haven't said whether I will get to keep my leg. But the next surgery should tell them.

 

[CarolPa]

I never noticed this thread before. Fortunately, there haven't been many posts for a while so we are either doing well, or too sick to post. I have been hearing on the news how bad the flu is this year. I don't get a flu shot anymore, but I think because I am retired and don't go out among the public much I'm not as likely to be exposed.

Addie, I hope you are getting your leg issues taken care of.

 

[CWS4322]

Oh my gosh, Addie, hugs and prayers.

 

[Addie]

Thank you both of you. I go for the third and fourth surgery on the 22nd and 23rd of this month. They did increase the nurses visits from once to twice a day. That seems to have been of some help. It just seemed that every time the dressing got dirty, like they were supposed to do with the slough coming off, the pain would increase. With two changes of dressings each day, that no longer is happening.

Right now I am holding my own. It is still just too painful to even walk over to the computer some days. So I spend most of my time in bed resting or just sitting up.

 

[Addie]

Pirate has been doing all the cooking for the past weeks. I know he tries, but I have no appetite, at all. He made a delicious beef stew the other day. He likes his with just the broth, I like mine a littler thicker. So he took out what he thought I would eat and thickened it for me. How could I not eat it. I lost another three pounds. Not good at all. I am now an even 100 pounds. I cannot afford to lose anymore or they won't do the surgery. So he asks me every morning, what do I think I would eat. If I said Beef Wellington, I know he would make a concerted effort to make it for me. So I have been just saying, "Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup." Even if it is only a small custard size bowl of it.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Pirate has been doing all the cooking for the past weeks. I know he tries, but I have no appetite, at all. He made a delicious beef stew the other day. He likes his with just the broth, I like mine a littler thicker. So he took out what he thought I would eat and thickened it for me. How could I not eat it. I lost another three pounds. Not good at all. I am now an even 100 pounds. I cannot afford to lose anymore or they won't do the surgery. So he asks me every morning, what do I think I would eat. If I said Beef Wellington, I know he would make a concerted effort to make it for me. So I have been just saying, "Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup." Even if it is only a small custard size bowl of it.

You need more protein for wound healing. Boost High Protein...do it!

 

[caseydog]

You need more protein for wound healing. Boost High Protein...do it!

I agree, get some nutrition enhancing shakes, like Boost.

CD

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Have Spike pick up beef bones to make bone broth. Have Pirate make chicken soup with a whole chicken. Then use the bones for bone broth. No more Campbells, not enough nutrition there.

 

[dragnlaw]

I was thinking the same thing for you Addie - there are many drinks to choose from. Up here "Ensure" is a popular one.

 

[Addie]

You need more protein for wound healing. Boost High Protein...do it!

I am now on a high protein drink that is tasteless. I don't mind drinking that. And I am making a real effort to eat mostly meat along with a small helping of veggies. (I will need to pick up another can of the protein this Friday.)

My regimen is a nurse comes twice a day to change the dressing. Once a day was not working. After about five hours or so, the wounds would start to burn. Sure enough, I would take the dressing off and it would be filled with slough. I have two huge shopping bags filled with medical supplies. The nurse doesn't even bother to bring up his own bag. It is working much better with the two changes of the dressing a day. On Friday, I go into Winthrop so the doctor and RNP can take a look at them. They take their pictures that are transferred right into my file on the computer. I have been on antibiotics since I left the hospital.

I am becoming impatient for the surgery. Having been through all of this before, I know what I am facing. The difference is that this time I have a whole medical team on my side doing everything they can do.

 

[CharlieD]

Have Spike pick up beef bones to make bone broth. Have Pirate make chicken soup with a whole chicken. Then use the bones for bone broth. No more Campbells, not enough nutrition there.

And way to much salt.

 

[Addie]

And way to much salt.

Today I shocked the heck out of myself. I had a very small piece of a steak that I had cut off when packaging it. The bigger piece was for Pirate. So I put some oil in the pan, heated it until smoking, and after seasoning the piece of meat, I dropped it into the sizzling oil. Got a good char on that side, turned it over, and while that side was charring, I made myself a salad.

The steak was cooked to perfection. The salad, well, I went a little too far with hope. I cut up two tomatoes into bite size and tore off a couple of the outside leaves of a head of iceberg lettuce. I took my trusty sharp knife and cut up the lettuce. Even when drowned in Ranch dressing, I still couldn't eat the lettuce. But I gave it a good try. I will wait until we get into the middle of the head of lettuce and I will try again. But the vine tomatoes were perfect.

The reason I wanted those outside leaves was that they are a lot darker and therefor has more nutrition.

 

[dragnlaw]

Go for it Addie, you're getting there!

 

[Addie]

Go for it Addie, you're getting there!

Thanks dragnlaw. This morning I asked Pirate to make me two poached eggs on a splip English Muffin. I never eat breakfast. And for lunch I finished up the American Chop Suey.

I checked my weight again two days ago and was down to 98 lbs. Way, way to low. I need to gain back five to ten pounds.

Earlier in the day, I began to feel lousy and couldn't figure out why. I asked Pirate to please bring me a tall glass of water. He loaded it up with ice cubes and I drank that down like it was going out of style. All of a sudden I felt fine. Dehydrated. Will have to keep an eye on that. I am not a water drinker as a rule.

 

[Caslon]

I am now on a high protein drink that is tasteless.

Addie, Ensure brand makes the best protein shake out there. Boost and all the others are inferior. Ensure grinds the solids in their shakes to a much finer degree than other nutritional shakes. That's why Ensure costs more.

The other brands are almost like drinking muscle man protein shakes. Not very smooth at all.

I've actually drank Ensure Plus Strawberry as a desert drink of sorts. It's really quite good. Smooth and creamy.

 

[Addie]

Well, I got the word yesterday. I went to see one of the surgeons that will be doing the operation. The same one who removed the clot in my leg. He showed me all the pictures of the surgery before and after. They also put a stent in my leg.

They will do everything they possibly can to save my leg. But there is no guaranty. I may walk out of the hospital after a five day stay, or I may go out missing one leg. The surgery will be sometime in March.

The good news is that I have started to grow new skin at the outside of the big open wound. The doctors want to get my BP under control first before they consider any surgery. They also changed my BP medicine.

I have the nurse come twice a day to change the dressing. There are three different nurses. My home looks like a hospital room. I have a hospital bed, a commode beside my bed, a wheel chair at the foot of the bed and a dressing station with all the necessary stuff the nurses need for changing the dressing. I am still able to stand and walk for a short distance. Very slowly!! Those first steps are very painful. But I soldier on! I no longer can do steps. Both legs are very weak from loss of muscle. So when this is all over, I will be going for physical therapy. I now weigh just 100 pounds even. And my legs are so weak, I can't even lift myself up the stairs. I am just grateful I can still walk.

 

[Kayelle]

This is really rough for you Addie, and I'm so sorry for your suffering with your legs.

I'm not clear about the reason this has happened to you, and I'm looking to learn something. Is the actual cause from Diabetes, or a combination of various medical problems? I know you have had top notch medical care and just wondering if such very serious problems could have somehow been avoided.
My very best wishes for your complete recovery.

 

[Addie]

This is really rough for you Addie, and I'm so sorry for your suffering with your legs.

I'm not clear about the reason this has happened to you, and I'm looking to learn something. Is the actual cause from Diabetes, or a combination of various medical problems? I know you have had top notch medical care and just wondering if such very serious problems could have somehow been avoided.
My very best wishes for your complete recovery.

Thank you Kayelle. This happened because I got three bites from sand fleas. They became infected. There are a lot of reason this happened. The main one was that I have very poor circulation specially in my legs. Before they can do anything about the wounds on my legs, they had to increase the flow of blood to my legs. I had a blockage in the leg with the wounds. So when I was in the hospital a couple of weeks ago, they went in and grabbed the blockage to remove it and they also put in a stent at the top of my leg. Sure enough, by doing that my body has responded by allowing new tissue (skin) to grow and fill in the wounds. They could not do the surgery, and now allow my body to heal itself. But that is a really slow process. Of the three wounds on my leg, the smallest one has already grown enough new skin so that it is almost healed. But the big one still has the tendons and other innards exposed. That is the one that they will operate on. They will put a graft over it.

This also happened because I have a very poor diet. With all the weight I have lost, I also lost my appetite. I am lucky to be able to get a half tuna sandwich down with a small glass of milk. I haven't been getting enough protein in me. So for the past two or three weeks, Pirate has been making full meals. Meat, along with two sides. He serves me on a salad plate. He has a regular dinner plate. If I can't finish it, I will just pick at it for the next couple of hours. Specially the meat. Sometimes when he wants something to eat, he will make a protein rich sandwich and give me half. The main reason I will eat that half, is to get the protein into me.

Yes, diabetes does play a part in all of this. I have been just controlling mine with diet alone. My doctor took me off my diabetes medicine a couple of years ago. Between losing weight steadily and having my sugar readings so low, I kept passing out. Not a good thing. I am still a diabetic and always will be. It is an insidious disease that does its damage silently. And I am sure it had a part in all of this mess I find myself in.

You are so right about the medical care I have been receiving. The head of Plastic surgery is going to work on my leg. He also is the head of Plastic Surgery for Boston University School of Medicine. ESP always sends me to the best doctors in Boston.

 

[Addie]

Well, I got the news yesterday. The doctor will not do the surgery. He feels that my heart couldn't handle the anesthesia. So they are going to treat my legs medically. That could take months.

 

[dragnlaw]

Oh Addie, I'm so sorry to hear this. You may have certain conditions that are medically unfit BUT you have a great WILL in your heart. I'm pretty sure others will chime in with the same view. We are pulling for you and you CAN do this.