I'm going crazy!

wishcat · 02-02-2007, 06:08 PM

I just need to let a few things out. So feel free to comment, or not.

First of all, my mom is sick. She has lots of things wrong with her. She is diabetic, has kidney problems, and most of all, survived a major heart attack that almost killed her. It's been 5 years since her heart attack and she seems to be doing good.
Recently, her cardiologist did a heart test on her and said that a huge part of her heart isn't recieving enough blood. He suggested she get a heart catherization surgery done. If she gets this done there is a 10% chance her kidneys will fail. If they fail, she'd have to go through dialisis 3 times a week for the rest of her life.
Of course there are other complications that may happen.
Well she finally decided to go for it and do the surgery. The appointment is in 2 weeks and it's driving me crazy. You see, my dad past away 3 years ago. So I'm the only here with a car that can take care of my mom. I have to take her to all her doctor appointments and stuff. If the surgery goes wrong, she would have to go through dialisis 3 times a week for 3 hour sessions each. I would have to juggle working full time, going to school, dialisis, my fiancee , homework, cleaning, and cooking. I feel like there are not enough hours in the day for all of this. I feel my body being overwhelmed with anxiety. I want things to go well .... I'm so afraid.

LaBelleDameSansMerci · 02-02-2007, 06:20 PM

Eeesh. *grimaces* I couldn't juggle half that without having a breakdown... Good luck, and I hope your mom's surgery goes well. *hug*

Johnny Gnar Gnar · 02-02-2007, 06:24 PM

Positive vibes. I agree, I couldn't do half of that without having a nervous breakdown at some point in time.

wishcat · 02-02-2007, 06:59 PM

Yea I'm trying to be strong for her. But it is so hard. I think I'm gonna start getting grey hair soon.

LaBelleDameSansMerci · 02-02-2007, 07:15 PM

If it greys right, it'll make you look "dignified."
[/sad attempt at humour]

Again, I hope it goes well. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you two. *thumbsup*

wishcat · 02-02-2007, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaBelleDameSansMerci

If it greys right, it'll make you look "dignified."
[/sad attempt at humour]

Again, I hope it goes well. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you two. *thumbsup*

Thanks sweetie. Means alot to me.

655322 · 02-02-2007, 09:11 PM

Sounds tough. Couldn't your fiancee help out?

wishcat · 02-03-2007, 06:23 AM

Hmmm, he could help out around the house maybe, but he works 2 jobs and goes to school. Plus he's the type of guy that, if I don't cook, he will most likey eat fast food or eat like one little thing from the house for the whole day. So... If I don't cook, he will prolly whither away.

But as far as him helping me take my mom to dialisis, I told my mom that I would be taking her if she wanted to do the surgery. I'm sure it would be rather uncomfortable to sit with a mother in law for 3 hours, so that's my responsibility. Hey! I supose I can do homework during that time huh? =D

Clockwork · 02-03-2007, 09:38 PM

Yes, that'd be a fine way to kill two birds with one stone. But remember, there's only a 10% chance... that's very small.

Still, I hope all goes well. Sounds like you're doing better than I ever could.

655322 · 02-04-2007, 02:44 AM

Ha! You sound just like my mum. She's always making up excuses for other people (who are quite capable of doing things for themselves), then doing everything for them. This in turn makes the situation worse because the person she is doing things for, comes to accept the fact that she does everything. Then they don't do anything.

Funny thing about my mum though, she seems to manage it.

A ten percent chance of something going wrong is pretty good odds if it fixes her heart! I'd take that risk.

wishcat · 02-04-2007, 06:22 AM

Yea it's only a 10% chance but the risks for someone like her, with diabeties and kidney problems, runs higher. I just hope it goes well and her kidneys don't fail. Otherwise I think I might end up having a breakdown or something.
It sucks cuz she just wants to be normal and not have to go to the doctors all the time, but if things go wrong, poor thing will be seeing alot of them. She said that going through all that would be like she is dead already. *sigh* That is why I told her that if she does end up having to go through dialisis, that I would take her so she wont be alone.

Anyways thanks for the comfort guys.

cymru · 02-04-2007, 03:28 PM

I will pray for both of you, wishcat.

HumanePain · 02-04-2007, 04:56 PM

I will pray every morning for peace and strength for you, and strength, health and long life for your mother too wishcat. Please be sure to share with us in a couple of weeks how the surgery went. ^_^

wishcat · 02-04-2007, 06:27 PM

Thanks alot guys. I will keep you posted on how it all turns out.

wishcat · 02-17-2007, 07:34 AM

It got postponed....

Things are worse than they thought it was going to be. She has two major bocked arteries in her heart. One would be easy to open. The other one is longer and more complicated to try to open. If they perform the catherization on the second one and it fails, they will be forced to do an open heart surgery - a bypass. If they do that, she will most likely die during it.......................
I think he said the chances of them going into bypass would be like 5 or 7%
Anyways, they want to do the surgery in like 2-3 weeks at Mercy Hospital instead because if they do need to do a bypass, at Mercy they have better equipment and also they have the surgens standing by.

Her kidneys turned out good after the dye and after a whole day and a half in the ICU she is finally home, but she will have that done all over again in a few weeks.....

Delicate_Torture · 02-17-2007, 08:45 AM

My girlfriend's grandfather (who is also a diabetic with kidney problems... most diabetics end up with kidney problems) recently started having chest pain and went to the Dr to find out that he had a total occlusion of one of his arteries and that he needed to have a stent put in to let the blood flow properly. He stayed in hospital overnight, was out the next day and has never felt better. Everything went wonderfully. He is going to go and have another artery stented in a few weeks.

We do a lot of cardiac stents and bypass surgery at work (I'm a nurse). When they do a bypass they don't open the heart up. They are working on the arteries that feed blood to the heart muscle, not the large artery (aorta) that carries the blood to the heart to travel through it. This would be easier to explain if I could draw you a picture. Anyways, the point that I was going to say is that for the amount of people who have these operations done every single day most of them have no complications what so ever and they heal well and have a lot more energy than before the surgery, because the heart muscle is getting the blood that it needs, which means that it is getting the oxygen that it needs.

I know that it is a really scary thing for you to think about because when you see your mother you know how sick she is and all of her other problems. Something to remember is that they don't really do these surgeries on people who are well. The people who have these operations are having them because they are ill, and that means that the surgeons, doctors and nurses who will be looking after your mother will be very used to dealing with people who have complications like hers. It means that all of those people who go through that surgery and come out of the other end of it feeling better and who heal up really well are ill people... a lot of them would have the same complications that your mother does.

I know that it is really really scary for you, but take heart (pun intended) in the fact that the techniques that are used to stent and bypass cardiac occlusions are not only highly developed, but have now become commonplace.

And not only that, but if you tell me your mother's first name I will annoint a candle for her and burn it to ask the Warrior face of the Goddess for strength.

wishcat · 02-17-2007, 11:40 AM

Thanks alot Delicate_Torture. Her name is Martha.

I wasn't sure what a bypass was. All I know is that the doctor said if they have to do that, the chances of her dying are really high because she has had a major heart attack before that almost killed her and her heart is really weak now and also because of all her other complications and her age. She is 61 years old.

I know if she does this and it succeeds, that she will live longer and feel alot better. I just can't stand the thought of things going wrong and losing her during the prosedure. I hope things turn out good.

Thanks alot sweetie, you helped put my mind at ease for a while.

Delicate_Torture · 02-17-2007, 04:00 PM

OK.. I'll try to make a bit of sense here but it might be hard without drawing you a picture.

Your heart is about the size of your clenched fist. At the top of it there is a large artery called the aorta which the blood travels through to enter the heart, Once the blood enters the heart it gets pushed through four chambers (the left atrium, left ventricle, right ventricle then the right atrium), the heart itself is made of muscle and that muscle contracts to push the blood through those four chambers. It would be like a little house with four rooms, the house is made out of muscle instead of brick and the muscle squeezes to push everyone out of one room and into the next, and then the next, and the next and so on... each time blood is pushed into the next chamber more blood rushes into the chamber that just emptied out. So, as you can imagine... the muscle works very hard. Imagine squeezing your fist open and closed between 60 and 90 times a minute for the rest of your life.

The reason that the heart can do this is because it has a good supply of oxygen. There are arteries (not the big aorta at the top of the heart - other ones called the cardiac arteries) that wrap around the outside of the heart. These cardiac arteries carry more blood to the heart muscle itself (not through the chambers inside the heart) and that blood carries the oxygen that the muscle needs. What happens when someone has a heart attack is that for some reason the blood doesn't get through the coronary artery to feed the heart muscle the blood that it needs. When this happens it causes part of the muscle to die off. The bigger the heart attack, the more heart muscle has died off from lack of oxygen. The same way that the tip of your finger would die off if you wrapped string around it tightly enough and left it there so that the blood couldn't get to it.

The usual reason for the blood flow through the coronary artery being stopped and causing a heart attack is that there is a clot that blocks it off. That is why when you go to hospital they will give you a medication that thins the blood out... it is meant to dissolve the clot.

Now... with your mother, Martha, if the blockage she has is too big to deal with by sending a little tube up through an artery from her groin all the way into her coronary artery where they will inflate a little balloon and try to clear away the occlusion (a cardiac catheterisation... and sometimes they then put a stent in to keep the artery open. A stent is a tiny piece of mesh tube that will hold the artery open and let the bloodflow through...) they will go and do a Bypass-also called Grafting.

What they do with this is they harvest a piece of vein from Martha's wrist or leg, and suture the ends of the wrist or leg vein back together. They will then take the piece of vein that they harvested and will suture one end of it to the coronary artery above the blockage and the other end below the blockage, so that the blood flow has a detour that it can take... a bypass (the same way that a traffic bypass works if there is an accident on a road) and this means that the heart muscle that the blocked artery was feeding will get the blood supply that it needs again to keep it strong enough to keep pumping.

They don't actually open the heart and do anything inside of it. It is called Open Heart Surgery because they open the chest to expose the heart. What they are effectively doing is making a little tunnel past the blockage so that the blood can flow to the heart muscle. It isn't really anything to do with the blood that is being passed through the chambers in the heart, it is about the blood that is powering that pumping motion that pushes the blood into the next heart chamber.

I hope that this has helped somehow. And I will definately light a candle for Martha.

If you think of any questions you should write them down so that you have a list of them to ask the Dr the next time you see him. It is easy to get overwhelmed with what is happening and forget all of the things that you wanted to find out about... a way to help with that is to make a list and take it to your mother's appointments so you know what you want to ask. There is no question too silly to ask. Remember, your mother has the right to know exactly what is going to happen to her body.

655322 · 02-17-2007, 04:51 PM

I'm happy to hear her kidneys are fine and that she is at home. You said yourself that if the operation succeeds, she will live longer and feel better. The chances of things going wrong seem to going down! Stay strong.

wishcat · 02-19-2007, 06:41 AM

Thanks alot, things make alot more sence now.

My concern now is to get my mom to do the procedure. She lives with my sister who has a learning disbility and is very religious. She keeps telling my mom not to got through with the procedure because she might die. She keeps saying that God will save her and she will be fine the way she is. So now my mom keeps telling me that she doesn't want to go through with it. If she doesn't go through with this procedure, she might not live long at all. I saw her clogged arteries on the little TV screen and it didn't look good at all, they looked almost completly closed.

Geez all this shit is really driving me nuts. I feel like I might have a nervous breakdown....

LaKeesha · 02-19-2007, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HumanePain

I will pray every morning for peace and strength for you, and strength, health and long life for your mother too wishcat. Please be sure to share with us in a couple of weeks how the surgery went. ^_^

This goes for me too. Sorry about your situation.

Crying_Crimson_Tears · 02-19-2007, 11:46 AM

I'm sorry sweetie. I hope all goes well for you. It sounds tough but I am sure some how you'll make it out okay.

And remember 10% is a very small chance.

*Hugs* I hope everything works out.

655322 · 02-20-2007, 04:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wishcat

Thanks alot, things make alot more sence now.

My concern now is to get my mom to do the procedure. She lives with my sister who has a learning disbility and is very religious. She keeps telling my mom not to got through with the procedure because she might die. She keeps saying that God will save her and she will be fine the way she is. So now my mom keeps telling me that she doesn't want to go through with it. If she doesn't go through with this procedure, she might not live long at all. I saw her clogged arteries on the little TV screen and it didn't look good at all, they looked almost completly closed.

Geez all this shit is really driving me nuts. I feel like I might have a nervous breakdown....

Not sure about the odds of a miracle happening, but I'd say they are fairly small. Your sister is obviously just as worried as you are. Your mother is probably the most worried out of all three of you.
I'd try very hard to persuade your mother to go through with the procedure. But in the end, it's her decision, and whatever she decides, you will have to live with. That's the way it goes, even with family. All you can do is talk to her and let her know what you think is right.

wishcat · 02-20-2007, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 655322

Not sure about the odds of a miracle happening, but I'd say they are fairly small. Your sister is obviously just as worried as you are. Your mother is probably the most worried out of all three of you.
I'd try very hard to persuade your mother to go through with the procedure. But in the end, it's her decision, and whatever she decides, you will have to live with. That's the way it goes, even with family. All you can do is talk to her and let her know what you think is right.

I know. I want this to be her decision and her decision only. I'm really hoping she gets this done because if it succeeds, she could live many years more. If she doesn't do this who knows when the next attack will hit. I'm trying to give her all the details about her condition and all I can do is state my opinion and await her choice. This is killing me! Either way we go here, it's really scary!!

What sucks besides all this is that I have messed up in my life by not going to school back when I had the oportunity to go. I'm now 29 years old and finally on my second semester in college. I'm trying to do my best in school and finally do something with myself since I have wasted so many years of my life. But with all of this going on, it's extreamlly hard for me to focus on my classes and homework. All I can do is think of my mom. I don't wanna fail my classes and fall behind, and I don't wanna be dropped for missing days from school to take care of my mom. To me, my mom comes before anything but the thought of losing her is overwhelming and the thought of falling behind in school is depressing me. I know I shouldn't think too much into all of this otherwise I'll drive myself nuts. I'm trying to stay calm and be there for my mom and do my best in school but man, it's so hard.

Not sure why I typed all that or if it even makes sence to anyone, I think I just needed to let it out.

Panther · 02-20-2007, 10:20 AM

I understand, I think. You need to go through school, but you also need to take care of your mom.

There's no easy way around this problem. It's something you'll have to decide for yourself. I do hope things go well for you. Good luck to you and your family, especially your mom.