Brenda T's Posts

By the way, from 3/16 thru 3/25, for 10 days I had the best home care anyone could want--my sister, who happens to be a nurse! I could not have gotten through being home and so sick with bronchitis without her care. Keeping all the meds straight, all the stuff we had to chart for 2 weeks (daily temp, weigh-in, blood pressure and beats per minute, glucose testing), and when I took what med when, with food, and then drink, drink, drink to rehydrate after getting so severely dehydrated in the hospital--it was an all day event of keeping track of all this! But my "Nancy Nurse" sister was on the case! So, this is a great big SHOUT OUT of thanks beyond measure to my sister, Melinda, for all your care, love, jokes, and introducing me to Duck Dynasty on TV--who knew those crazy people were so funny??!! Love you, big Sissie! Turid

I can't believe that 4 weeks ago I had my surgery! All the anticipation waiting from Oct. 24th till March 7th, and now I'm in the healing phase! Praise God! I can't say enough good things about Drs. Adams and Fischer and their teams of healthcare professionals! Fantastic! They were super experts on pain management and so very caring and helpful! While in the hospital, I contracted bronchitis, so the coughing 24/7 with that illness was gruesome on my cut opened chest! I finally got the antibiotics and cough medicine I desperately needed when I got home--thank God for the visiting nurse from Dominican Sisters who took charge and got me those meds! And she taught me a great way to ease the pain of all the coughing. Take a new role of paper towels and hug it the long way when coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose! The heart pillow is cute, but basically not functional! The paper towel role really works 100 times better! So the towel role has become my little traveling buddy wherever I go, room to room, in the car, etc.! Of course I still needed pain meds, but hugging into the role gave much more support. I stopped taking the Dilaudid the end of March and am doing OK on 3 Advil, 3x a day, for the rib/chest/back pain from all the coughing and pulled muscles. The surgical incision pain is non-existent! Because I have asthma, I didn't get discharged on a beta blocker prescription, and because my blood pressure was so very low, I didn't go back on the Cardizem. However, after 4 weeks of tachycardia up in the 120s and shortness of breath, Dr. Adams' P.A. thought it would be wise to see if I could get in to see my local cardiologist. I got to see his P.A. yesterday, and then she ran a mini-echo to make sure I didn't have any fluid around the heart, which I don't! Yay! So I started the Cardizem lowest dose of 120mg. Today I got to take a walk without pounding palpiations and the shortness of breath has eased up somewhat! Yay! I just started home physical therapy--they were backlogged for over 2 wks, but I was so sick the first 2 weeks when I got home, I couldn't have done anything anyhow! Thank God the antibiotics and cough meds killed the infection and cough, and now I can work on the phys. ther. exercises.and get stronger! Slow and steady wins the race! Here's to warmer weather and walking in sunshine! So grateful to be alive and healing! Brenda

Hi, It is soooo good to be home! Visiting nurse came this morning and all is going well. PT will come some time next week. So happy to be moving forward and surgery behind me! WOW! My sister arrives around 6:00 p.m. tonight! Hooray! She's a nurse, intuitively aware of what u need even before u do!! And she's so funny so should a great 9 days! Yayyyy! Now for a little nap! Brenda Turid