Update on Becky & Her Mitral Valve Replacement Surgery.

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Hi

just letting you know that most of these problems are way out of my personal experience / knowledge areas ...

Becky;n886601 said:
I asked my mom and she wants to go to the new hospital which is a teaching hospital even if we incur debt.

The only person who came to talk to me was the pulmonologist and he said this was all her heart. Not her lungs. He said she is not gaining any more fluid on her, but she is not losing any fluid either. Her hips and thighs have stretch mark like welts all over them from the fluid on her.

I hope I am doing the right thing. I fell like the extra fluid needs to go, but I don't know. I am scared she will get sick at the new hospital.
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Given the things I've heard my view is that if you are following your heart with your mums best interests in mind then I believe you are doing the right thing.

I hope it gets easier soon...
 
Hi All.

She came home on home healthcare today. She was less coherent than yesterday. She looked so swollen. The home healthcare nurse came out to see her and her O2 dropped. She also felt that mom looked bad and couldn't believe that she was released in that condition. She kept saying that she couldn't leave my mom like this. So she called 911.

I told them not to take her to any hospital, but the one affiliated with the advanced heart failure program I want to get her in. She eventually ended up there and they couldn't believe how bad off she was. The docs couldn't believe my experience and agreed that there was a lot that could be done. They told me that there were things they could do to get her more stable. She has both lungs with fluid, plueral effusions - the right side worse than the left, and her heart function is weak. She was so swollen they had a hard time getting a vein and she has all the squiggly welts on her body.

They are admitting her. I hope she gets into the heart failure clinic.

They also told me you can fire a doctor for any reason. What did we just experience at the other hospital?
 
What you experienced at the other hospital was a failure to address your mother’s heart failure in a coherent manner.
The hospital and its doctors appear to have been out of their depth when dealing with your mother.
You now appear to have her at a hospital that at least knows how to treat heart failure hospital, so hopefully her condition will start to improve.
She is fortunate to have a daughter like you that are taking on the advocacy role for her, a lot of people are not that lucky and their relatives do not want to get involved.
 
YES!! This is good to read! Keep doing what you are doing. Their are procedures to physically take off some of that fluid so now you just need to find the right doctor. I have had two small surgeries to have that done after my open heart and they drained a ton off me.

Those squiggly marks I am thinking are stretch marks as I have them from gaining all the water weight also. My skin even opened up and wept from soo much water. You do have to watch for that as it can also get infected and be bad.

I kind of agree with some of the reasoning on hospital stays also as I have gotten MRSA there. A staph infection and other bugs they have there can be very dangerous.

Keep Mom a moving if you can. Get her upright and even the smallest movement helps. More will come later but cannot stress enough how helpful it is. A movement, a cough up of some fluid, anything is better than lying there and letting that fluid build up. Elevate the legs, massage her legs, there are youtube massage methods for fluid build up, Eating is a good also, ask for salt replacement on her trays if necessary. If she does not eat muscle mass is lost also so nutrition plays a part.

You are doing very well with her and I know it is hard, but forget some of the money issues until you get this back under control. I think they can now tell you are not going to just lay down and have any mistreatment. Protocols are very confusing but if one screams hard enough someone has just got to listen!! Keep it up and hold on to confidence. You CAN and will DO this.
 
Hey Pellicle,

I am inclined to agree. I am just stunned at the difference at this hospital.


Hi OldManEmu,

I agree with you as well. I think it may be a mixture of both going on. However, I found out that the hospital where she is now did some of the first transplants here! So I am sure they have a long line of experience with hearts. Thanks for the compliment. I will take care of my mom.


Hey Paleowoman!

Totally. It has been a hard road. Her legs are so swollen she can't stand for anyone to touch her. They were turning her today and she cried out so much and would just moan and moan.


Hi Jwinter,

That gives me hope jwinter re-procedures. I am hoping that her skin doesn't weep, but she is so tender now and her legs and knees are so swollen and hurt so bad she can't stand to have someone move her legs. I will stay vigilant, but they seem to be more on top of it at this hospital. I will get her moving. Definitely. I will hold off on the massage because she is so tender now and she is so puffed - she looks painful.
 
No one at her new hospital can understand how she was allowed to get this bad. The cardiologists told me there were many options. Dialysis was even mentioned. They put her back on Coreg to increase her ejection fraction. They also are increasing her iv lasik in order to increase her output which is working and she is on fluid restriction. They want to get all of the water off like I was begging them to do at the other hospital. They gasped when they saw her feet and all the flesh that was gone.


They told me she is in heart failure. No one told me that at the other hospital. They just said that this would take time which is a lie because heart failure doesn't spontaneously resolve in time.


The new cardiologists mentioned potentially inserting a defibrillator, but they want to look at her valve replacement. They think her mitral valve surgery may not have been successful. They said that if the valve was placed poorly and is leaking/regurgitating then it would cause her heart ejection fraction to drop that low.


This means either the other hospital didn't know what they were doing or they knew the surgery failed and were trying to cover their tracks. The fact that she was being under treated and allowed to suffer was making her conditions worse.
 
Becky;n886634 said:
I think I need a malpractice attorney. I know malpractice is hard to prove, but what her PCP and the other hospital did set her up to die.
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If you think malpractice is involved I would not make mention of that online for all to see. Contact the attorney before making any public statements regarding legal action. Remember that statements made online in chat rooms are public property and might be used in defending against a malpractice claim..
 
dick0236;n886635 said:
If you think malpractice is involved I would not make mention of that online for all to see.
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I would agree with **** ...

Further I'll add that in my own litigation case (traffic) it took 4 years and at the last turn when court was not avoidable by the defendant the solicitor pulled the "court is unpredictable, so we have a settlement offer (which was to pay only his fees) on the table, so if you don't pay my fees now I'm not risking this in court"

Lawyers are not to be trusted (unless you are so rich and powerful they would be afraid to cross you) ... just saying
 
pellicle;n886636 said:
...Lawyers are not to be trusted (unless you are so rich and powerful they would be afraid to cross you) ... just saying
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Lawyers are just like everybody else; some are trustworthy and some are not. Sometimes a simple consultation with a lawyer can help focus a person and keep doors closed that shouldn't be opened in the first place. For example, in inheritance difficulties, a cheap consultation with a lawyer across country showed me I had no recourse other than to shut up and take it or sue a family member. That's not a path that I wanted to go down. Sometimes a simple consultation results in a single letter penned by a lawyer that can open up doors and wallets :)

There are more important things than money. My family had a case of malpractice, we didn't sue, but we pursued the doctor and seriously curtailed their career and ability to use the local hospitals. We were encouraged to sue or at least pursue the doctor by someone who also treated the patient. When we decided not to engage legal help, the good doctor told us how to use the hospital's disciplinary system to ensure the bad doctor was curtailed.
 
tom in MO;n886641 said:
Lawyers are just like everybody else; some are trustworthy and some are not.
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I would clarify that more specifically.

I believe that in cases where self interest drives a business that you can make good predictions of behaviour using that method. If a Lawyer determines that its in his best interests to cave in on an offer (say, they are working in no win no pay) then when the scenario arises that they will gain and the risks of them not gaining are at their maximum they will do exactly what you'd expect.

Don't expect altruism and expect self interest to rule. As long as that is the basis for your trust you're OK ... but if you just blindly accept what they tell you ... you're a fool

Like the Russians say (and was popularised by Ronnie Regan)
Doveryai, no proveryai = "Trust but verify"

I say this about every interaction and every piece of advice.
 
tom in MO;n886641 said:
\

Sometimes a simple consultation results in a single letter penned by a lawyer that can open up doors and wallets :)

There are more important things than money. My family had a case of malpractice, we didn't sue, but we pursued the doctor and seriously curtailed their career and ability to use the local hospitals. We were encouraged to sue or at least pursue the doctor by someone who also treated the patient. When we decided not to engage legal help, the good doctor told us how to use the hospital's disciplinary system to ensure the bad doctor was curtailed.
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Either one of these would be great, but stopping these people from hurting others would be the best.




______________________________________________________________________

Thanks Pellicle,

As always I appreciate your input and I will keep your wisdom in mind.
 
pellicle;n886642 said:
I would clarify that more specifically.

I believe that in cases where self interest drives a business that you can make good predictions of behaviour using that method. If a Lawyer determines that its in his best interests to cave in on an offer (say, they are working in no win no pay) then when the scenario arises that they will gain and the risks of them not gaining are at their maximum they will do exactly what you'd expect.

Don't expect altruism and expect self interest to rule. As long as that is the basis for your trust you're OK ... but if you just blindly accept what they tell you ... you're a fool

Like the Russians say (and was popularised by Ronnie Regan)
Doveryai, no proveryai = "Trust but verify"

I say this about every interaction and every piece of advice.
Click to expand...

Lawyer do more than litigate suits for money. A family member works for the State of MO placing children who need homes with foster care or relatives other than the one's they are living with. This involves criminal court, family court and drug court. Most of the lawyer she works with are paid a salary and often work for the state or non-profit organizations. They do have the best interests of their clients at heart, but sometimes it's hard to find the pathway to Good.

I work with lawyers every day in a research institute. Our lawyers help chemists, engineers and biologists from ruining the company by accident, retrieving money from bad clients and getting full worth from difficult suppliers. I blindly accept what they tell me because they are coworkers, deserving of respect, who generally do a good job. I don't consider myself a fool.
 
tom in MO;n886655 said:
Lawyer do more than litigate suits for money. A family member works for the State of MO placing children who need homes with foster care or
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of course they do, but do you think your family member is likely to be the lawyer engaged in a potential litigation for malpractice? Come on mate, don't take it personally that just because your family member is a lawyer (a rather large pool, including constitutional through to patents) and attempt to defend the entire bunch of amblance chasers just because your family member is a good person. My mates daughter started in Law but moved into Government Policy (she works in Health here in Queensland) and she'd be the first to warn you about unethical lawyers.
 
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