An update from yesterday's amazing story. Here are the first three paragraphs:
"A surgical team at Legacy Emanuel Hospital cut an inch-square opening in the skin-and-bone graft where Steltz's nose used to be. And late in the afternoon, as Steltz came out from under the anesthesia, she breathed through a nasal airway for the first time since March 21, 1999.
"She can breathe out of the nose, but we don't know yet if she can smell," her mother, Jeannie Steltz, said jubilantly.
"I said, 'Close your mouth and your lips and now breathe like you had a nose,'" Jeannie Steltz said. "And she did."
Read the complete story here:
http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2009/09/post_5.html
I keep praying that the rest of the surgeries will be as successful and that Chrissy Steltz someday will be able to go into the grocery store without people staring at her.
OK, I haven't talked about Mom much lately and the concerns that I have. Mom has two appointments this month with specialists. One is with a neurologist, one is with an orthopedic surgeon. The neurologist is because mom is having trouble with her ankles and one of her wrists. She has trouble controlling the wrist and her ankle swells up. I have really been paying attention to her ankle with icing and pain patches and I think we have that under control. However, the wrist may require surgery. Low risk surgery as far as life but a risk still could be that her she loses some movement in her wrist after surgery. Now the orthopedic surgeon is due to her degenerative hip. She is in almost unlivable pain. One of the things they me do is either cortisone or steroid shots to alleviate the pain. Another choice is hip replacement. The hip replacement has gigantic risks. Mom has heart trouble and she has six stents implanted in her heart. She has diabetes. There is probably a better than fifty percent chance she wouldn't survive that surgery. I'm not sure what choice I would make, live with unlivable pain or risk death. I need all of your good thoughts, prayers, vibes, anything you can muster up and send Mom's direction. I am guessing Mom will appreciate them, I know I will. Let's hope the cortisone or steroids shots do the trick so that mom doesn't have to make an extremely difficult decision.
The question of the day is, what would you do if given a choice of living in pain or taking an option that has a high risk of death?
TODAY'S TRIVIA:
Yesterday's answer: HANNAH HOES VAN BUREN
Today's Who Am I.
I was born in 1790 and died in 1842. I was confined to a wheelchair when my husband became resident of a famous house. My husband was the first resident to have a wife die while he lived in that famous house. He also married in that house to another woman after my death. I was the most comfortable at my home in Williamsburg with my bible, prayer books, and knitting table at my side. I was born on a Virginia plantation. Formal education wasn't possible for women during my lifetime but I leaned the skills of managing a plantation, rearing a family, and presiding over a home that was my husband's political refuge. I married my husband on his twenty-third birthday. I had eight children, seven survived. I was crippled due to disease in 1839. One of my daughter-in-laws described me as "the most entiredly unselfish person you can imagine - Notwithstanding her very delicate health, mother attends to and regulates all the household affairs and all so quietly that you can't tell when she does it." Due to me being in a wheelchair I didn't do social events. My daughter, Priscilla, at age 24 assumed the position of the House hostess, met its demands with spirit and success, and enjoyed it.. Wife my son Robert
Priscilla was intelligent and beautiful, with dark brown hair, she charmed my husband's guests--from visiting celebrities like Charles Dickens to enthusiastic countrymen. Once she noted ruefully: "such hearty shakes as they gave my poor little hand too!" The only social event that I attend at the famous House was at the wedding of one of my children. My life was peacefully ended in 1842 while I was holding a damask rose in my hand. She was taken to Virginia for burial at the plantation of her birth, deeply mourned by her family. "She had everything about her," said Priscilla, "to awaken love....", I knew not of his woman before my research. Do you know who she is?
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6 comments:
I have no answer to your question of the day, since it would depend on so many variables... degree of pain, whether it was incapacitating, what other areas of life I still found rewarding... I can certainly imagine risking death rather than enduring incapacitating pain, though at what point I would choose that risk, I can't say.
Beyond that, you and your mom have all my sympathy. I won't offer any advice, as the decision is really up to her. I can only hope the steroids will help and that there's no such major decision to be made.
Hi Pat
Thank you. With Mom she has gotten to the place where she has a hard time getting in and out of the car, has a hard time getting up from chairs, etc. and if it gets much worse she may need 24 hour care. I'm hoping the shots work.
Bill
I think I'd take the risk rather than live with that kind of pain. When I worked for orthopedic surgeons, we usually told the patients that any decision like that was up to them. That the deciding factor would usually be that the pain interfered with "activities of daily living" or "affected the quality of life".
One of our daughters is considering surgery on her foot to fix some hammertoes (poor kids - feet like their mother's - LOL). She's at the point where the pain is worse than the prospect of surgery, so she's probably going to have the pain.
In your mother's case, of course, there are other medical factors to consider, and that's something that will require more input from treating physicians to make such a decision.
We're glad to be home and almost back into our ruts. Having said that, we're headed out of town again tomorrow, but just for an overnight. Our California granddaughter will be home in SC for a few days, so we're going to drive over to spend the night and get a chance to visit.
Hello Mary Z
Welcome back! Enjoy the time with your granddaughter! And how is John doing?
I think right now at times the paid effects Mom's quality of life, just not all the time yet.
Good luck to your daughter and how if she has the surgery it will go well and she will be out of pain. She is to young to live in that kind of pain.
Bill
Hi Bill (hugs to Mom)
Very tough decision; pain vs surgery, let alone high risk surgery. Personally, I'm not fond of the thought of "the knife", but I also was at a point that I was ready to go through back surgery as I was wanting anything to stop the pain. I was fortunate that the drug they put me on for the last 2 years (in preparations for spinal surgery) made such an improvement in my bone mass that I do no longer have to deal with that type of pain. I'm off that drug now as they will only keep you on it two years, but as long as the pain doesn't creep back into my world, I'm happy. And I don't have to worry about the other health complicatons that your Mom does.
So, I echo earlier comments; when it affects the quality of life and she reaches a point where the pain is intollerable.. then the decision will be hers.
I'm sorry you have this to deal with. ;( Sending healing thoughts and lots of hugs to you both.
Hi Kaye
Thanks for your supportive post.
Thank goodness you no longer have that pain! I hope it doesn't creep back in your life!
Thanks for both the healing thoughts and hugs. Both Mom and I appreciate them.
Bill
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