November 17, 2013
Today I went hiking with your sister. I cannot speak about you to her very much; it is still too hard for her; especially about losing you. Each day, this week, I plan to do something in your memory and bring you with me in spirit and thoughts. I plan on capturing those days, 4 years ago, to remember you and to keep my memory correct. I do not want time to pass without documenting these important dates about you and what was happening. This blog has become my journal and my correspondence about you to others. Someday it will all be in a book, until then, your website is a wonderful place for me to write.
On this date four years ago, you had the surgery that was supposed to make everything ok. The problem I believe (or the first problem) occurred because your nurse was not advised that surgery would be performed that morning, Nov 17, 2009, and you had eaten breakfast. So your surgery was postponed until the evening of the same day. I always wonder if things would have been different if your surgery had taken place in the morning, when your doctors would have been more available, than they were that night. As with so many things, we will never know.
You old shunt could not be removed, after 31 years the tubing and mechanism had fused to your tissues, so the new shunt needed to be placed alongside the old. The old tubing had not been sealed shut and your doctor believed your spinal fluid seeped out of the surgical site where the shunt valve was connected to the tubing valve. This is where your infection entered and how it traveled so fast to your brain.
Such a routine procedure we all felt. Seal the old tubing and treat the infection. I remember when you were brought out of surgery (around 8pm) and we were taken directly to a regular room, not the ICC/ICU unit as we had been taken the week before, after your first surgery. To me, this meant everything was great! I even told your sister not to come see you, because she was not feeling well. I truly believed you would be sitting up the next morning eating breakfast and within a day or two you would be coming home again.
But this time surgery did not go so well, you had a headache that could be controlled by the pain medicine given; and the headache got progressively worse. Your pain was so great! I can still hear you telling me your head hurt and then you were telling me they were blinding you! "They were blinding you"... did you even understand what you meant by saying those words? It was so frightening. Your nurse (Suzanne) called the doctor on call for you. He told her to stop bothering him and hung up on her!! I never got his name and I don’t know if I ever met him the next day. I often wonder if he thought about his behavior that night. I wish your doctor Dr. Wielenga (your personal doctor) would have been available, but he was on vacation. Just another “what if” for us to endure for many years after losing you… We will never know if he would have made a difference? When your left eye became fixed, Suzanne set up an ultra sound test for you (which came back showing no problems, no fluid blockage, no pressure build up) BUT she insisted that you be transferred to the ICC/ICU unit. We were going back, and I was happy, because your care would be monitored. I called your daddy George and he came back to the hospital to help comfort you and support me. We called your sister and she spoke a few minutes with you and said she knew immediately something was wrong.
Your daddy George and I both felt if we could get your headache under control and you could rest, all would be better in the morning. I even was thinking how if your eye was damaged, what we could do to fix it, how we would go see your eye doctor and maybe you would need a glass eye or something. I determined if your eye was still fixed in the morning I would discuss it with him... how naive I was, so very silly of me when I think of it now.
I think we all just felt you were having a bad post-surgery. We didn’t understand and I didn’t think for a second, I would lose you. That you would not be coming home again. It never crossed my mind that night.
Always and forever with me, mother.
Today I went hiking with your sister. I cannot speak about you to her very much; it is still too hard for her; especially about losing you. Each day, this week, I plan to do something in your memory and bring you with me in spirit and thoughts. I plan on capturing those days, 4 years ago, to remember you and to keep my memory correct. I do not want time to pass without documenting these important dates about you and what was happening. This blog has become my journal and my correspondence about you to others. Someday it will all be in a book, until then, your website is a wonderful place for me to write.
On this date four years ago, you had the surgery that was supposed to make everything ok. The problem I believe (or the first problem) occurred because your nurse was not advised that surgery would be performed that morning, Nov 17, 2009, and you had eaten breakfast. So your surgery was postponed until the evening of the same day. I always wonder if things would have been different if your surgery had taken place in the morning, when your doctors would have been more available, than they were that night. As with so many things, we will never know.
You old shunt could not be removed, after 31 years the tubing and mechanism had fused to your tissues, so the new shunt needed to be placed alongside the old. The old tubing had not been sealed shut and your doctor believed your spinal fluid seeped out of the surgical site where the shunt valve was connected to the tubing valve. This is where your infection entered and how it traveled so fast to your brain.
Such a routine procedure we all felt. Seal the old tubing and treat the infection. I remember when you were brought out of surgery (around 8pm) and we were taken directly to a regular room, not the ICC/ICU unit as we had been taken the week before, after your first surgery. To me, this meant everything was great! I even told your sister not to come see you, because she was not feeling well. I truly believed you would be sitting up the next morning eating breakfast and within a day or two you would be coming home again.
But this time surgery did not go so well, you had a headache that could be controlled by the pain medicine given; and the headache got progressively worse. Your pain was so great! I can still hear you telling me your head hurt and then you were telling me they were blinding you! "They were blinding you"... did you even understand what you meant by saying those words? It was so frightening. Your nurse (Suzanne) called the doctor on call for you. He told her to stop bothering him and hung up on her!! I never got his name and I don’t know if I ever met him the next day. I often wonder if he thought about his behavior that night. I wish your doctor Dr. Wielenga (your personal doctor) would have been available, but he was on vacation. Just another “what if” for us to endure for many years after losing you… We will never know if he would have made a difference? When your left eye became fixed, Suzanne set up an ultra sound test for you (which came back showing no problems, no fluid blockage, no pressure build up) BUT she insisted that you be transferred to the ICC/ICU unit. We were going back, and I was happy, because your care would be monitored. I called your daddy George and he came back to the hospital to help comfort you and support me. We called your sister and she spoke a few minutes with you and said she knew immediately something was wrong.
Your daddy George and I both felt if we could get your headache under control and you could rest, all would be better in the morning. I even was thinking how if your eye was damaged, what we could do to fix it, how we would go see your eye doctor and maybe you would need a glass eye or something. I determined if your eye was still fixed in the morning I would discuss it with him... how naive I was, so very silly of me when I think of it now.
I think we all just felt you were having a bad post-surgery. We didn’t understand and I didn’t think for a second, I would lose you. That you would not be coming home again. It never crossed my mind that night.
Always and forever with me, mother.
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