I thought I’d give you all an update on how our uncle, our dads brother is doing. Its a week today since he was found seizing and was brought to hospital. He’s still in the ICU and he’s still unconscious. Every so often he kinda opens his eyes but for the most part he remains unresponsive. He’s had CT scans and EEG’S on his brain, and they’ve shown that he’s still getting tons of seizures. They’ve started him on meds to try to stop the seizures. His left hand side of his body is still dead. He might be having an MRI but the doctors said its a last resort because of all the tubes and wires and things that are on him. Today they said they think his brain is swollen, but again, they cant be sure. On Saturday his stomach swelled up and when they did an ultrasound it showed his bowel was all twisted so he had to have a proceedure to fix that and thank goodness that worked. They were feeding him through a drip but they’ve stopped doing that for a few days to see if that will help. He’s off the ventolator for the most part but sometimes they give him oxygen or put him on ventolation for a few minutes to help him along. He’s on antibiotics for a chest infection from aspirating vomit and the antibiotics are clearing up his infection. So those are the updates that I have for now. I think its going to be a very long road for everyone whose involed in his care and also for him too.
Tag Archives: Hospital
Appointment with our OT, basement club news, and our grandad
Saw Mark our occupational therapist this morning. It went really well. We finished off doing up the interest list. Its weird, I didn’t realise I had so many interests until I started doing that list. I ticked things on every page I think. The only category where I had no interests was outdoorsy stuff, like for instance, camping, fishing, etc. We are going to meet in two weeks and start making plans. We’re also going to do some goal setting. Mark is going to make a list of all the interests, and across the top of the page he’ll put short term, medium and long term goals and we’re going to work from there on setting goals. He uses the smart principles of goal setting. He did tell me what they were but I cant remember now. But I am sure if you google smart goal principles it will come up. He told me that we didn’t need to work on confidence building, or on getting me motivated, since I take initiative, and I am already a highly motivated person so it was pointless to do that. It was a great appointment though. Now I am at the basement centre. Just met with my mentor Colette and we had a supervision meeting. She is my supervisor for the voluntary work I am doing here at the basement club. We had to talk about my work because one of the other members had been helping me with some of my work, but now she’s in hospital so she’s unable to keep doing it. So Colette told me to take the day off today and next Thursday at the members meeting I can ask if there is another member who can support me so that I am able to keep doing the work. I’m glad to have the day off. My friend Rose is coming in and I want to catch up and spend some time with her and now I’ll be able to do that. Me and Colette arranged to meet for mentoring next Tuesday morning. I want her to help me to get some voluntary work outside of the work I am already doing. I’m not sure yet what I want to do exactly but I intend to go on the website for the irish voluntary centre and look around. Colette said she’s go with me and we could drop in to the centre and talk to them some time over the next few weeks. Also our grandad is in hospital. He was admitted last night. He had a doctors appointment yesterday about his kidneys. When she ran tests it turned out his kidneys were only functioning at 6 percent, so they admitted him to hospital. His bloods are really low too. He just is not well and needed medical intervention. I hope he’ll be ok but I’m actually worried that he wont. He’s become really frail over the last weeks. I think he’s nearing the end of his life.
Carol anne
Hospitalisations in 2014
So 2014 is almost over. Its been a rollercoaster of a year. So much has happened to us during 2014. There were a lot of hospitalisations during 2014, moreso than other years, I think before this year we hadn’t been in hospital a lot, maybe once or twice since 2010 but not more than that. This was a particularly difficult year for us with lots of new memories coming up, and with being revictimised by past abusers. Also two of our hospitalisations this year were in a secure locked unit, which was a rather traumatic experience and one I don’t fancy repeating any time soon. We were in hospital for our birthday too this year which was really difficult. We’ve only ever been in on our birthday one other year and that was about 7 or 8 years ago. Our relationship with our psychiatrist has really flourished this year. It seems as if we’ve been seeing her forever, when in actuality its only been just over a year. It helped that when we were in hospital she did things to strengthen our attachment to her…like, for example seeing us by herself, making time to see us on her days off, etc. I really hope that next year we can manage to stay out of the hospital completely, that is my goal…whether it actually happens or not I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see. We haven’t been in since August though which is a really positive step I think.
Carol anne
I celebrate myself Preemie blessings14
November is national preemie awareness month. Being that I was a premature baby, I am choosing to participate in the challenge that Michelle over at preemie blessings is doing.
Her question is who are you celebrating this month, to raise awareness of prematurity? I’m celebrating myself.
I was born at 27 weeks. I wasn’t meant to survive. I had breathing problems and underdeveloped lungs. I also had underdeveloped eyes which led to my blindness.
I was kept in hospital for exactly 3 months after I was born. My parents would visit but I was in an incubator so they could not hold me that much. So the bond to my parents wasn’t that strong. That is why attachment is such a big issue for me today.
After 3 months in the hospital I came home. But the rest of that first year, I was in and out of hospital all the time. Going home no one knew I was blind. It is only due to my mom getting no reaction out of me when she put toys in front of me that led her to question things and take me back to the doctors where blindness was diagnosed after lots of tests.
Despite my early life being frought with hospital visits and sickness I’m still here. Now an adult in my mid 30’s I am thriving. And I am so happy to be alive. Today, I celebrate myself and my life and the fact that I survived.
Feeling sad
Found out just now…our granddad, moms dad has cancer again. He survived it before. It was in his stomach last time and they removed his stomach. Now its in his lungs. He’s 80 years old. They’re talking about doing surgery but I am not sure he can handle more surgery. I’m not even sure he will consent to it. I think he wont because he hates being in the hospital. The tumour they found is small right now. But tumours grow rapidly if not treated. They were also talking about kemo, but they were leaning more towards the surgery route, due to his age. Its a sad day. I hope he wont die before xmas. That would be devastating for the whole family if anything happened to him before then.
Carol anne
Many of us's blog 