There’s No place like Home!
They say home is where your heart is. I say, home is where your health is.
As you may know from my previous blogs, my mom was admitted for emergency service into Jamaica Hospital on March 26th with what she thought was food poisoning. Several hours later she was on an operating table diagnosed with an incarcerated hernia, that’s where the intestines bust out and hold prisoner another organ, in this case her bowels… the short of it… if she didn’t have the operation she would die within a few hours.
They said it was a five- hour operation and would require a two-week stay. Seven hours later she was out of surgery, and 6 MONTHS later… she was finally out of the hospital. Yes, you read that right. Six months later… so what went wrong?
Understaffing, lack of communication and the biggest killer of all… infection! The operation didn’t kill her- that went well. She survived like a tough cookie… but she developed an infection in the wound and not one, but two cases of C-Diff which she developed when she was moved to Trump Pavilion. C- Diff (short for Clostridium difficile) is an infection caused by too much antibiotics… in layman’s terms… the good bacteria was killed off, allowing the bad bacteria to run amuck. (Kind of like gang members in a community with no police.) It can easily be spread by hand… another words… if you don’t wash your hands… you can spread it to another patient!
(Which proves that washing your hands everywhere is important not only in classy restaurants.)
The results in her case; a severely weakened state, diarrhea for 6 months straight (ain’t that lovely), vomiting (another appetizing thought) dehydration (which is always fun), low potassium levels (which is dangerous for the heart) and a slew of other domino effects including life threatening blood clots in her legs because they never put on compression stockings or the leg massage machine as she laid dormant! Basic nursing one on one that was not done! I’m telling ya, this place was killing her! (Of course I didn’t know this at the time, but with each new symptom I did a ton of research on the web and was getting my own medical education.)
At points my mom called me totally drained and depressed, “If this is how life is going to be I rather die.” To keep her spirits up, I made her visualize, told her she survived the hardest part, and made her listen nightly to healing meditation tapes. My sister and I also visited almost every day to let her know we were there for her, and that would keep a close eye on things. But even with that… we did not know all that was going on. And in case you haven’t guessed, I’m not one to keep quiet… I feel bad for those in the hospital that don’t’ have active family members involved.
Anyway, because the only medical insurance she had was Medicare, after a few weeks, ready or not… she was shipped to another department and finally wound up in Trump Pavilion for “short term care.” (Which in the medical world is considered under a year.)
While the surgeon, Dr. Rubin was excellent in caring to her wound, and two aides were fantastic… the rest of the staff at Trump was less than desirable… often leaving her in a diaper of excrement for over an hour… which of course lead to rashes, and other infections.
With daily treks to Queens from Putnam (and feeling like I should have owned stock in a gas company), on July 16th, I moved her up to Treetops, a nursing/rehabilitation place up here.
Within one day they managed to give her medication to stop her vomiting, and she was finally eating.
Progress was good but slow. They were attentive, and I didn’t have to worry about them not taking care of her, I could relax. However, she still wasn’t really walking a lot; she was still in a diaper and couldn’t go to the bathroom by herself, much less change her clothes or do anything that resembled the independence she walked into the hospital originally with.
In Treetops she would go to therapy 2x a day, eat lovely meals, have a beautiful outdoors garden to attend to… but she wasn’t getting better that fast.
At one point in Treetops she developed this bizarre rash on her arm that was red, hot and caused her hand to swell up to the point you couldn’t even see her knuckles. This went on for weeks as a battery of tests still left doctors puzzled. Finally, they thought it might be a spider bite. So I looked that up on the internet… found out that banana skin cures mosquito bites… since nothing else was working I snuck a banana in at 7 PM at night, and the next morning I got a call, “Fran you will be amazed your moms arm is practically healed, the redness is gone, and the swelling is down”… Then I told them, that I had used a banana on her. The doctor said he had actually heard of that, and if it worked to keep doing it. So for the next three days I put banana skins on my moms arm. The redness was gone and the swelling that had been there for weeks disappeared and never returned.
My mom became known as the banana lady. Bottom line, a natural remedy worked.
As I travel a lot for work, the debate became who could watch my mom if she came home. Would I bring her up here for recovery at my house in Putnam, or would my sister take care of her at her home in Queens? We decided even with my travels, I had a better support system up here, which consisted of my son, my friend and neighbor Wanda, and her kids. We all agreed to take shifts and watch her, plus Treetops arranged for home care for my mom, which consisted of a nurse, a physical therapist and a home care attendant.
I could have left her in Treetops… but in my heart I knew I had to get her out… even though she could barely walk, could only do a few steps, and still had to have a diaper change as she lay in the bed. I knew if there were any chance of her getting back to being independent… I’d have to do it.
So I made arrangements for her to come home on Sept. 10th.
Now believe me I was scared. So scared that I cried just a few hours before picking her up. How was I, a single mom, going to manage taking care of my mom full time, paying to get my son through college, and still work, which required mostly out of town work? Could I handle changing her open wound every day, cooking all her meals, changing her diapers, taking her temperature, giving her the meds and get her to doctor appointments and up and down the two flights of stairs in my home? Could I carefully watch the unnecessary blood clots that developed on her legs in Trump Pavilion, that caused her great pain and irritation, and that had to be carefully monitored less she get a heart attack? I cried, but I knew I’d do it anyway.
The nurses at Treetops were wonderful. They showed me how to change her wound. Since her stomach was still open, I had to stick my gloved finger into her stomach and insert the healing strips of medication. It felt like warm Jell-O and quite frankly was rather gross. My mom saw my expression… I just laughed, “Okay I’ll get used to it.”
The day I took her home, I gave out presents, took photos of my mom with nurses and assistants, and even though many were skeptical about her progress, considering the state she was in… I swore… before she goes back to Queens, that she would walk in there on her own two feet to say goodbye and thanks them all.
A large part of me knowing my mom would recovery faster at home was that my mom wouldn’t want to see me work so hard to take care of her, so she would try harder at home. I also knew being around the people she loved, and have one-on-one care would be better.
The first days home, like with anything new were the hardest.
Getting her into my car with a step stool, trying to get her up my stairs, literally having to raise her legs one by one like a marionette puppet required three of us to get her up the stairs. She had to stop mid way, and even debated living in my hallway, because she was so winded – the weird thing was… the wound was not the problem, the thing she went in for! It was the blood clots in her legs! Something that didn’t have to happen! It was frustrating! Had everyone done their jobs… she would have been out and healing at a normal pace!
In addition, with all the responsibilities for my mom, I basically I had to fit my present lifestyle into 5 hours less a day. My back was hurting from lifting her legs… but every morning I would practice staring the day with gratitude…”Thank you God and Mother Mary that my mom is home and that I am able to help her recuperate.”
I cried a few times, she cried a few times… but we both believe she would get better. At first when the home care aides came they didn’t think the diagnosis looked good. I said, “Trust me, and give it time… I know me and I know my mom… she will be independent again.” I had told them the story of what happened, and they couldn’t believe how strong my mom was to have gone through all of that.
But by the end of day one, for the first time in 6 months she got her own legs on the bed. It was very painful but she did it.
It is now 39 days later (yes I am counting) Now she is speedy Gonzalez on the walker, she has moved from diapers to pull ups, puts make up on, makes her own bed, can go up and down the stairs lifting her own legs…. occasionally walks on a cane not a walker, eats regularly does not have diaherra, etc. However we still have a long road ahead.
The bottom line is… I believe with all my heart that if I didn’t get her out of the first hospital she might have died. I also know that she went through things that she didn’t have to go through… but I also know that the human heart, and determination and some careful research can overcome many obstacles.
Together we are doing it… and I’m sure the reason is… because no matter what… there’s no place like home, to heal, to love, to live.