Mom update

Wow I didn't realize I hadn't updated on what went on with mom yet! I swore I had written it up already but it must have been all the emails and phone calls I made during that week mom was in the hospital.  Lot's happened so I am going to just do point form what happened:

• The resident and nurses kept telling mom and dad that she could go home the next day (starting all the way at the beginning of the week saying she could leave Tuesday!) Her doctor knew something just wasn't "right" though and kept wanting to do more, wait for more etc.
• The found that she had an increased pulse rate that was sitting around 100 (which we all know so much about!) and after many tests and worries it was found that she had a blood clot in one lung. However it was not in a dangerous area at all and they say that it could have potentially been sitting there for years or it could only be from the last surgery.
• Because of this we entered into the realm of blood thinners :S Even more so we entered the realm of home health care for a brief period of time with so much conflict. Big city told mom and dad that a nurse would come to the house daily to give her injections for 30 days. Our town told us that a nurse would come out for three days to teach someone how to do the injections.  Reality - A nurse came out, went over all the stuff associated with the injections and then asked who would be doing the injections. Neither mom or dad could muster up the courage to do it, so I stepped forward. From then I had to giver her 38 injections total!
• Mom went back in early January for her follow up and was put on a pill form of blood thinner. We had to do six more days (with horrible pre-filled syringes instead of me having to draw up the dose myself) and then she was switched fully to pills.
• She has had a lot of blood work done since is now on getting tested every other week) and her values have been right in the appropriate scale and has only had to take one pill a night when generally I understand this is abnormal as it usually takes a lot of play to get the dose right.
• She goes back the second week of March to find out about the blood clot, we assume another CT scan will be done.

She is doing really well.  She came home after a week at the hospital (last December) and was basically at the same level she was before surgery. She recovered from this one, which was much more major and involved a whole lot faster than the original surgery (which was basically just exploratory). Everything is going well and we even are wondering about getting my blood clotting levels tested as the few scrapes she has got while being on the blood thinner are healing very abnormal to her but very normal to how I heal. The 'bumpy' scabs, extended healing time, easily 'knocked off' scabs etc so we are going to ask about getting my INR levels tested as a curiosity.