05.04.2006 † 11:43 am
MOM

Right now, my mom is in the hospital on life support. She called me on April 13th, the day I had my oral surgery, and told me that she was going into the hospital. I didn't know what the hell was going on. Ever since she has been in there, it has gone down hill. She went in for a bacterial infection, and ended up going back in forth to the ICU for various reasons. She is morbidly obese, she has end stage renal disease, high blood pressure, high cholestrol, and diabetes. However, we thought she was getting better last weekend, and they were getting ready to discharge her to a rehab facility. Then, they noticed over the weekend that her infection was draining excessively. They decided they would have to do surgery to get rid of the debris. When they did the surgery, they discovered that she has Necrotizing Fasciitis, also known as the flesh-eating bacteria. They had to remove 30 pounds of flesh along her inner all the way to deep inside her abdomen, just reaching the sack that covers the intestines. She has to have lots of medication, because they can not seal the wound because it would keep the infection inside of her. Instead,they have to pack the wound, which is "massive". Because of this, she needs lots of pain medicine, which causes breathing problems, and she already needed oxygen as it was. So, they put her on a respirator. However, they were also having problems because of her blood pressure, which has dropped dramatically to something like 100/28. She normally has very high blood pressure, and the diastolic number was getting dangerous. They were worried that it was because of her high potassium level, but they could not do dialysis because it was too hard on her heart. They needed to do a gentler form of dialysis that is continuous. In order to that, they needed to put in a new catheter to her heart, to have direct access to her blood. This procedure in dangerous, because it can punture the lungs, and then it would collapse. Normally, they go through the groin, but of course, this was impossible, because this is where her wound is. Finally, the next day, they were able to get the catheter in without anything dangerous occuring. Now, her blood pressure is better, but the surgeon has told me that we could lose her to this, because her diabetes and renal failure make healing so difficult, and this is such a massive wound. I remember when she was in the hospital when I was 12, and she was in their for like 6 weeks or more, just because of a toe infection. And back then she did not have renal failure. SAo, this is very scary and upsetting for me, especially to see my mom with all these tubes shoved down her throat, and so uncomfortable. To add to it, she was having lots of memory problems in the hospital before she had the respirator. I am worried that she is scared and confused and doesn't know where she is and she cant communicate it because she can't talk with the respirator. She keeps drifting in and out of consciousness. I don't know what I will do without her. She has always been there for me, always. I am used to calling her on the phone everyday and telling her whats going on, and I can't do that anymore. I don't want to have to spend holidays without her. Christmas was always her favorite time of the year. I'm only 21 and I don't want to be without a mom yet.


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