Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Mom's Surgery - Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus

I guess I haven't posted in quite awhile. It has been a busy month though. On Dec 16th, I took Mom and Dad to Wenatchee for Moms brain shunt surgery the next day. Mike went down ahead of us to get Jessie's house warmed up and plow the driveway. We stayed at Jessie's house since we had to be at the hospital by 5:30 am and had to get up at 4am. Mom went into surgery around 7:45 am. Mike, Dad, Bill, Carl S and I waited for the Dr to let us know how things went. After a couple of hours he came out and told us thing had gone smoothly and she would be in recovery for a couple of hours. We went down to the cafeteria for breakfast then went up to watch for her to be wheeled to her room. Although she was tired and disoriented she was doing okay. They had her up walking before too long. She wasn't feeling very good and really wanted to leave. Clyde and Lana came up to visit her in the afternoon. In fact Clyde came by a few times that day. She seemed to be doing a little better by evening and had eaten dinner, so we decided it was time for us all to go and let her rest as well as us. I'm afraid she probably had a very confusing night but the staff at the Central Washington Hospital was wonderful, and took very good care of her. When we arrived in the morning we were expecting her to maybe be released that afternoon. We met her nurse in the hallway and she said she was going to be released that morning. I said in a hour or so? But surprisingly she said in about 10 min. Mom was sitting up in the room when we got there, she had had her CAT scan, seen the Dr. and had eaten breakfast. Bill was there, it was about 8:30 am. I had brought her clothes in so the CNA helped her get dressed and before you knew it we were out of there! Mom didn't want to ride out in the wheel chair ...so she walked. I know she was sooo glad to be leaving. Bill followed us up to Jessie's in Cashmere to stay and visit with them while Mike and I ran into town to do a little shopping at Costco. We got our things together and left Cashmere by 1:30. We drove straight home...making one stop at KFC for chicken for dinner, then we picked up her pain meds at the drug store. Mom was in some discomfort on the way home, she had staples in her scalp and stitches in her abdomen. She was using her walker and cane the first couple of days at home but yesterday when I got there she was up and walking quite well on her own. Wonderful!! Other symptoms...not much change. She is feeling better...less pain. All we can do is take one day at a time.

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