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I want to catch everyone up to date on Mommy’s condition. She had gastric bypasss, also known as bariatric surgery on Oct. 6th. Mommy had the surgery in Grand Rapids, because the Kalamazoo Dr.’s said that she was too old for the surgery. She was initially released to a nursing home near me, but she begged us to come break her out after just one day. Apparently, the woman in the bed next to her had a stroke right in front of Mommy, but Mommy saysShe had gastric bypasss,
also known as bariatric surgery that’s not what freaked her out the most!

So, she started convalescing at home with Daddy. They got a hospital bed, and a fleet of visiting nurses, and things were looking good for about a week. Then, she slipped on the bathroom mat, and her knees couldn’t support her, and, basically stopped working altogether. She spent the night calling Zeke to come over and help her go to the bathroom. Furthermore, her feeding tube (the surgeon had inserted a tube in her stomach for medicine), had gotten plugged up, and the visiting nurse couldn’t unstop it. She called emergency.

Mommy went to Borgess Hospital, where they couldn’t unplug the tube, either. She ended up going back to Grand Rapids to have the tube unblocked. The procedure was easily performed, and Mommy and Daddy left the hospital with a phone number in case the tube got blocked up again.

Daddy decided to put Mommy into a different Nursing Home, because now that she couldn’t even use her walker, he couldn’t do much with Mommy at home. This time, he put her in a Nursing Home in Alamo, a few miles west of Kalamazoo. It is also pretty near my house, but 15 minutes away, instead of the 5 minutes away that the first Nursing Home was.

Mommy was doing her rehab, and trying to recover at the Nursing Home, but she had a hard time keeping food down. Every time I went to see her, she seemed like she was fasting. Her response time grew slower and slower, and eventually, she couldn’t read or do hand-work.

Daddy started getting concerned when he noticed that Mommy couldn’t carry on a conversation very well. After a while, she no longer participated in Occupational or Physical Therapy, and she couldn’t talk well. All she did was sleep with her mouth open.

Early December, Mommy checked in at Borgess Medical Center. She was admited on the cardiac ward, and had a Neurosurgeon check her out. During an earlier emergency room visit, Mommy had undergone an MRI. This revealed some kind of mass on her brain. The neurosurgeon was consulted, and he said it look like a benign mass that had been there for quite some time. He didn’t recommend doing anything to it, and furthermore, it had nothing to do with how she was behaving.

At this point, Mommy was sleeping all the time, and not responding to much stimulus. She was in the hospital for two days before receiving any kind of food.

I did an Internet search on complications to bariatric surgery, and found that a condition called neuropathy is fairly common in diabetics who undergo the surgery. Mommy is diabetic, and the symptoms outlayed in the article were like her symptoms.

The treatment suggested was vitamin B12. The condition comes from B12/protein deficiency. Her surgeon had checked her out prior to this latest hospital stay, and had said she was fine, except she needed more protein.

It made perfect sense to me that this was her problem. Try telling the hospital staff that!

Borgess is a teaching facility, and there are so many Dr.’s, interns, etc. streaming throughout. I tried to bring up wht I’d found to a nurse, who said, “wait just a minute,” and she never returned. I told her I’d leave the information in the room, as I had to leave.

After they started feeding mommy through her feeding tube, she started reviving, and was able to talk with much struggle. She still seemed to go in and out of consciousness. She was in this state, when they took her for a second spinal fluid test. Some of the many Dr.’s on the case are sure that the problem is cancer, and they are scared to biopsy her because of her weak state. They thought this spinal test would be gentle enough.

On December 29th, they took her for the spinal test, and lay her on her side or stomach. Mommy’s heart arrested, and a team of young Dr.’s heroically resucitated her.

I had decided to take all the children to the hospital to visit her on that day, so I was there just as they were finishing the recusitation. I had left Yanni in the lobby with Esteban and Xay and Mani and Joy with me when I went down to see her. Mercifully, I had the presence of mind to send Xay and the girls to the lobby before I went and saw her.

She was kind of gray, and very puffy looking. She had a wild look to her–hair sticking straight out, cold to the touch. It was nightmarish.

Curtis had called me while I was on the third floor, looking for Mommy, so he knew what had gone on, and we both tried desperately to reach Daddy and Zeke. Everybody arrived at the hospital at basically the same time, and Curtis was greeted by cheers from the children. He took them home, fed them, and put them to bed, and then came back to comfort me.

We spoke with a young Dr., or Intern, named Dr. Ramen, and I should have thanked him for saving Mommy’s life. He was still rather shaken about the whole incident. He was accompanied by an even younger Dr. with an impossible name.

Finally, an older Dr., Dr. Walrick, a pulminary care specialist came to talk to us. He told us scary stuff about not being sure whether Mommy would wake again, or have another arrest in the night. He also told us first that he didn’t know anything about her situtation, but he heard that the Dr.’s were concerned that it was cancer. He didn’t have anything good to say.

Well, the next day, Mommy was acting better than she’d been since this whole thing started. She could really talk, and looked intelligent again. What a relief!

We had several family members come up over the weekend, which just so coincided with New Years, so they celebrated a little with us too. The best news was how well Mommy received them.

By Monday, however, she was back on the respirator, and heavily sedated to keep her from trying to pull it out.

I saw her in this state on Tuesday. When I returned to see her on Thursday, yesterday, they were just about to take her off the respirator again.

When I went in to see her, I noticed that her hands were puffy. Catrina, the nurse on call, explained that it was from having her hands strapped down (again, to prevent her from pulling out the breathing tube), and not having had them exercised. She said it should dissipate now that her hands were unstrapped.

I noticed that Mommy is much thinner. Her stomach looks flat from her elevated bed position. Her chest also looks almost flat. Her face is more chiseled. I can see cheekbones, and collarbones. Her chin is square. it reminds me of Yanni.

I noticed a chart on the wall had her weight in kgs. I did the conversion to come up with 271 pounds. Curtis estimates that Mommy has lost 100 pounds.