General Medical issues thread

[drron]

Though @Ewing and I had weight loss before our accident so not as much padding as most typical people. We both thought we were doing the right thing.
My orthopod was in no doubt that movement was causing my pain.

 

[Quickstatus]

We both thought we were doing the right thing.

Another ortho friend says (obviously T-I-C) that exercise and sport is bad because he ends up fixing all the problems - and generally on weekends and out of hours.

Lack of padding can definitely cause issues
Mrs QS has an intredullary nail in her tibia. The locking screws at the lower part of the shin is causing pain due to lack of padding there. . So can't wear boots or ladies shoes with straps for instance.

 

[Seat0B]

Spoiler alert: this tale ends reasonably well

We’ve had a big couple of days in the Seat household. It was Mr Seat 0A’s birthday this week and so I organised a family morning tea on Saturday morning to celebrate. I picked up my granddaughter (5) and my mum (91) and brought them to our house to prepare the party while Mr Seat0A went to the gym and came home with our daughter and her wife. We were to be joined by our niece and her partner as well.

We three girls were just nattering as little one played, mum sat at the table and I rubbed the butter into a big batch of scones. After a couple of minutes, little one said oh look Gigi has fallen asleep at the table. Now this is not uncommon as she’s on a lot of drowsy medications. But something didn’t look right to me - she was listing awkwardly to the left and looked like she might slide off the chair. So I went to see if I could help her sit up a bit and realised she was having a stroke. Pronounced facial droop on left, unintelligible gibberish speech, drooling, left arm dangling uselessly and left leg non responsive. I knew it was immediate 000 call but realised my phone was about 10m away inside my gym bag in a cupboard. Too hard to send Seat Granddaughter as it would take her a while. So I got her to come over and give Gigi a big lean in hug to hold her up while I ran for the phone and called 000. Luckily she is tall, strong and fit and was a really big help. I tagged with her and addressed all the questions from the 000 dispatcher. We just held mum’s hand and hugged her and told her help was on the way. She was compliant but confused.

While I was still on phone to 000, the doorbell rang and it was niece, quickly followed by rest of family. They removed all cars from driveway for ambo access and Mr Seat 0A took Granddaughter up to the top of our driveway to wait for ambulance and go a child friendly explanation of stroke.

Ambos arrived and were absolutely wonderful - calm, thorough, reassuring and professional. In turn they called for fire and rescue attendance as they couldn’t easily get mum out of the house so she got carried out by 4 lovely strong young men. Then off to hospital - not super fast driving but used sirens at every intersection and traffic light do we did not have to stop. They called the hospital en route and we were met by the stroke specialist nurse and a team of other medical staff. Mum was whisked straight to CT scan while I did admission paperwork. After about 20 mins, a junior doctor told us (my sister had now arrived at the hospital) she was back and being stabilised and we could see her soon. The neurologist saw us then and was very plain speaking “we would like to try the thrombolysis (clot buster) treatment on her as it is her only chance to maintain her independence - but at her age there are risks. 30-40% chance it will help her, 5% chance it will severely worsen her condition and kill her, the rest of patients have no harm but also no benefit. your call.” Sister and I agreed mum would want to try it and that she has repeatedly said she is ready to go anytime now. Luckily mum was in a bit of a lucid period so we were able to confirm with her to proceed.

The stroke occurred around 11am and they started the infusion at 12.44. Well within the strict 3 hr time frame for this. That took an hour with obs every 15 mins and a nurse at her side most of the time. So far so good. By the end of the hour, she was able to move her leg a bit. And the facial droop was gone. Took her to the acute stroke observation ward where intense bobs continued - as did her improvement. By the time we left her (in very good hands) at 1700, she had good movement in her leg and arm although unable to control her arm well and unable to touch her nose. Loss of sensation still in left hand/arm and fingers not working well. Her speech was totally normal. What a miracle.

Her improvement had continued today as she was able to sit in a chair with a cuppa. She can now touch her nose. Still no sensation in left arm and movements still jerky and a bit unco. But amazing improvement from where she was.

They will keep her for a few days for progress CT scan(s), neuro consult, physio, OT and speech pathology and then decide what’s next. She of course wants to go home (alone). We are all quite anxious about that as neuro mentioned in passing yesterday that she was “quite likely” to have another stroke in the future. Her plan for that was to use her emergency call necklace. But seeing how she was in the throes of it yesterday, I don’t think she could have managed. Not only the physical paralysis, but she was not cognitively alert enough. Hard conversations ahead I fear. Plus I’m knackered after all this!

But what a good result. Amazing.