It has been a very long month. Shortly after my last post, there was a family emergency that I had to attend to. In the end, everything worked out and we are just so relieved and blessed that things are ok.
This may be a long post, so I'll try to condense as much as I can but I won't be able to guarantee it!
After working 2 sites non stop for months, it was counting down to the last few shifts before I officially went 'casual'. At this point I felt pretty drained already and was looking forward to finishing my last few shifts.
Things took a scary turn during my second last shift, when mom went for her cataract surgery. Usually cataract surgeries are, generally speaking, very safe and people don't suffer much complications from it. The first time she had it, it went very well. There was no pain, no blurry vision, no issues at all. About 3 weeks later, she went in for the second cataract surgery in her other eye, and this is where things started going downhill.
She noticed her vision did not recover as fast as the other eye. It was blurry and remained blurry for 2 days post-op. She did take the eye drops that the doctor ordered and stuck with a schedule. However, by the second day she said her eye felt like popping out. Now I wasn't home much during these 2 days due to working non-stop, plus when I got home she was already sleeping. It was difficult to properly assess. Plus she didn't tell me she was going through these symptoms.
Day 3. Early morning she decided to get out of bed and wash her face, then do eye drops. But while she was attempting to do all that, she started feeling light headed and fainted. It wasn't witnessed so we have no idea how long she blacked out for, but it must've been a while. She woke up, not knowing what just happened. Went back to bed, and tried to go back to sleep. Dad and I had no clue because we were both fast asleep and didn't hear anything.
Her normal routine is that she would do some light stretches and sit up for a while before getting out of bed. For some reason, that morning she just jumped out of bed. And boom.
Shortly after 9am, I get a phone call from my sis-in-law, notifying me about classes she was trying to sign mom up for, but she wasn't able to. Normally she doesn't call that early in the morning, but it was just that morning that she had to tell my mom something. I told her that she was still sleeping but I'd be happy to pass along the message when she's awake. And that was that. I went to get ready to head out for the day.
It was during this time while I was getting ready in the bathroom that mom called my brother, and stated she might have fell down but she wasn't sure. Then she didn't really make much sense after that and then hung up the phone. I had no clue this was going on.
Soon after, I get a phone call from my brother telling me to check on mom, because she might have fell. That's when I freaked out.
Of course I go running to her room and seeing if she's ok. She's still in bed, but then tells me she had vomited earlier. And she still couldn't see out of her eye. Everything was blurry. She also felt dizzy. Her ribs hurt.
From a health care professional perspective, this is an urgent case. The first thing that popped into my head was a traumatic brain injury/hemorrhage, because those are signs and symptoms of a TBI. She looked weak so I knew she probably had did some damage. I went to assess her head, and that's where I found a contusion at the back of her head. It was pink, no drainage or open wound but it was there. At this point I'm also updating my brother and we both agreed: we need to go to a trauma centre asap.
Problem is, mom did not want to cause me any distress or bother me because it was my only day off. She wanted me to relax and enjoy the day off. I said HECK NO! We are taking you to ER and we need to go NOW. I will pick you up and take you in your pjs right now!
Being the mom she is, she disagreed. She has to look good and dress good. She insisted on wearing these certain pants and sweater and socks. It was the most frustrating thing trying to dress her and knowing that a hemorrhage can drastically change things in an instant.
I went down to get the car out, then ran back in to get her. I couldn't find her in the room. What the hell? I run to the washroom. There she is, combing her hair. By this point, my blood is boiling. But the last thing I want to do is stress her out so I let it be. Finally, when all has been done, I drive to the trauma centre and send her to ER. I remember her saying we should just go to the nearest community hospital because that's where the eye surgeon is located, and she didn't want to make the doctor feel bad. Problem is, they don't have any eye specialists or brain surgeons on call, so it was a no go in my eyes. It was useless to me.
In my head, I replayed what needed to be done in the ER: CT scan, MRI, X-ray, blood work, consult for ophthalmologist and perhaps a brain surgeon. The ER was very thorough and did exactly all that plus more. I was quite impressed. There's a reason why they are one of the best trauma centres in the world.
The ophthalmologists came in to assess her affected eye and suspected endophthalmitis, an inflammation of the internal coats of the eye which if not treated, can result in loss of vision and the eye itself. Endophthalmitis is a result of intraocular procedures, but most in particular, cataract surgery. This was something that was not presented to my mom before her cataract surgery. The only thing she got was a paper that stated all the types of cataract lenses she could get, and at the end there was a disclaimer saying that vision may not improve after lenses are inserted. It never said any details about complications. This is the part that really pissed me off because the surgeon didn't sit down with mom to go through the various complications. Instead, it was "here's this paper, just read it and that's all".
Her intraocular pressure was off the roof: 38. The normal range is between 12-22. No wonder she felt like her eye was going to pop out.
Her intraocular pressure was off the roof: 38. The normal range is between 12-22. No wonder she felt like her eye was going to pop out.
The goal was to try and get her to the eye clinic to do this procedure. However, due to her head injury, she had started vomiting once we got her from the stretcher to wheelchair. It was not safe to bring her up in the state that she was in, so the doctors agreed to leave her on the stretcher, and bring the eye equipments down to ER. This was the part where we were so thankful. The fact that they were able to wheel down a spare machine was incredible and we felt so blessed for it.
The procedure involved having to poke a needle in her eye to drain whatever was floating in her eye, as well as relieve pressure. From what they showed me, it looks like a white cloudy hue that surrounds the iris, with a slightly bigger blob at the bottom of the iris. The procedure involved having to give local anesthesia first. Great I thought! But it was horrifying when I saw how they had to give it: via a needle which needed to be given under the eyelid.
This is the part when I almost cried for mom. She was probably scared for her life. My brother and I encouraged her to be strong; I held her hand while my brother was directing her to look in the direction that the doctor wanted her to look. It looked absolutely painful and dreadful, and to this day, I can say my mom is very brave for enduring that. I also give huge applause to the doctor for having such great skill as well. It definitely isn't for the faint of heart or for those who hate needles.
Soon after, my brother stayed with mom while I stepped out with dad to take a breather. The doctors were now going to poke her eye and start draining, and this is where I couldn't look without feeling like retching. The procedure itself did not take very long and they managed to drain everything and also send a sample to the lab for processing. Doctors then ordered a set of antibiotic eye drops, as well as anti-inflammatory drops to go in the eye, for every hour, for the next two days.
Within 5 minutes of the procedure, we finally heard some great news from mom: she can see! It was the most exciting thing to happen that day. However, doctors had said they didn't know how much damage it had done to her eye, so they were unable to give us an exact answer of whether her vision would recover 100% or partially. With endophthalmitis, there is a poor prognosis when it comes to vision recovery. It was good and bad news.
Within that same day, the brain surgeon came to see us and give us an update about the scans. The first scan was a bit unclear so they did a second scan, and it was here that they found a small bleed in the brain. They were going to keep her in the hospital for observation if there was going to be any further bleed. Thankfully after the third scan, it didn't show further bleeding, so she was able to be released.
We were at the hospital for approximately 4 days. The first couple of nights were very tough as the stretcher was very uncomfortable for mom, but we couldn't do anything. I knew the stretchers were not comfortable because I remember attempting to sleep on one during break, and it hurt like hell. So I can imagine staying on that for 2 days non-stop. It's brutal.
Knowing how busy hospitals can get, I ended up staying with mom for most of those days. The first couple of nights, it was non stop 40 hours of making sure she was ok, and also giving her hourly eye drops. I didn't want the staff to forget about the drops because the first week was crucial in vision recovery. Things did get quite busy in ER the next day so I informed the nurses that I could give the eye drops every hour. They were very relieved and thankful because they ended up taking on a heavy case.
Just like mom, I did not eat or sleep during those 2 days. I was stressed and worried. Then of course the darn women period thing had to come, and I started getting mad cramps while trying to take care of her.
Throughout the stay, I made sure to keep her comfortable, keep her company and give her eye drops (as well as making sure doctors were not prescribing her other useless medications like colace since she's not bed bound). Thankfully nothing else was ordered, just the way I like it. When we become the patients, it's like the tables have turned. I have never encountered something like this, but at that moment, it was all about getting mom better and back home safely.
I also know how stressful it is when the assigned nurses find out the family is also from a health care background. My goal was to not make their day a living hell (like some families), but my goal was to also help their workload. Most importantly, it was to get mom better. So we did whatever we could to help mom, and at the same time, help to reduce workload on the nurses. At the end of each shift, the nurses were very thankful for having us there.
After mom was released from hospital, her vision improved greatly, her IOP dropped to the normal range and she was weened off the eye drops. It was also found that the sample that was sent to the lab did not contain any bacteria. In fact, it was her eye that became very inflamed post surgery; it was just the way her body reacted to the site. However, inflammation of the eye can still cause vision loss if not treated promptly.
To this day, mom is grateful and thankful that God has really looked out for her. If it wasn't for her fall, she wouldn't have gotten treatment until later on, and by that time it would've been too late. Even with the blurry vision prior to the fall, she was adamant about seeking help for her eye. She figured it was perhaps a slower recovery this time around, and to keep using eye drops until her follow up appointment with the cataract surgeon (which was about 10-15 days away!). If she had waited that long, I believe she would've lost some of her vision, gone completely blind or lost her eye completely.
Dad had wanted to do cataract surgery with this surgeon as well (his vision is pretty good by the way), and even though we kept telling him what is wrong with him, he still was very insistent on doing surgery. He was afraid if he kept waiting until he was too old, then he wouldn't be able to do it anymore. After going through this hospitalization and seeing the potential side effects and complications that this could bring, he decided against it and canceled his surgery. Great move dad! Mom says perhaps this is also God's way of telling dad to back out of surgery - by using her example.
My mom thanks God for the fall. Because of that fall, it really helped to lay everything else down and get proper treatment for her vision. We are very thankful that her brain injury was not severe, but she would have post concussion syndromes for a while until she recovers. I'm also thankful that my sis-in-law called us that early morning. It's true, she doesn't call that early in the morning, but that morning she had to call us to inform us of a recreational class. This one time call helped to also initiate conversation of what happened. If it wasn't for her call, I would have gone about my merry way and went out for the day, and wouldn't have known about the fall.
If it wasn't for the fall, we wouldn't have met the doctors and nurses taking care of mom that day. We wouldn't have met the vitreoretinal surgeon that helped save my mom's vision. Or the brain surgeon, or the ER doctor. They are such a great team to work with.
There were so many little details that happened that day, that when we all look back at it, it wasn't just "luck" or "evolution" or "chance"; to us, it was God's way of showing us that He's there. It's the little daily miracles that help to shape the bigger picture and remind us of how great He is. He has a plan for all of us, and we have to be willing to let Him into our lives if we want Him to change us for the better. Thank you God, for looking out for mom, for us, and giving us these amazing guardian angels to look out for her. We are forever thankful.
