You Sure Look Swell

Aug 11

We had an interesting weekend. Vic's feet and ankles were swollen on Saturday and he was short of breath. He contacted the surgery resident who said we needed to go to an ER. We took him to the local hospital; he had some tests and was given Lasix and pee'd off a gallon of fluid in 3 hours. His feet were less swollen, but not 100% back to normal and he was still short of breath. The ER offered to pack him up and send him to UW (like he's a package?) or he could go home with some Lasix pills. He chose the pills.

He took the required dose on Sunday morning, took a 2nd one a couple hours later (tho he wasn't suppose to) and they didn't work. So back to the ER we go, but to Univ of Washington. We sat in the waiting room for 3 hours. Do you know how many sick people there are in the ER waiting room? Like, really sick? Like, coughing sputum and pucking and breathing? Ewww.

Got back to an ER room at 6:30 pm, had the same tests he had on Saturday in Auburn, but they added a CAT scan, echocardiogram and deep vein thrombosis ultrasound. They were looking for a blood clot since his left foot was much larger than the right. If they were the same size, they could have said it was just post-op edema. But since the surgical side was larger, they entertained the thought that it was a clot.

What's interesting, in hind sight, is that when Vic talked to the surgery resident on Saturday - before our Auburn ER trip - he mentioned having an ultrasound to see if there was a clot. It was mentioned again on Sunday when Vic talked to the resident. So, why didn't the ER doc at UW (who was in contact with the surgery resident) do the ultrasound first - given that the ultrasound dept closes at 7 pm? What a pain that was!

I had a good chuckle about 10 pm - okay to me funny - was that the ER doctor was asked by the surgery resident to check a certain body part of Vic's to see if it was swollen on the left side. Let's see, it was his feet/ankles and a little of his face that were swollen . . .not the middle part. lol Okay, I understand that they were looking to see where the swelling began and stopped. But to me it was funny.

We didn't get to see the surgery resident & surgery "real" doctor until 12 midnight because they were in surgery all while we were waiting in the lobby and in the back. They wanted Vic to be their guest until the ultrasound the next day. And we waited to be their guest. . . .2.5 hours. When we asked a nurse at 2:30 am how long it was to check into their fine hotel, we were told that there had been a shift change and it got missed. BUT! She would get us into a room within 15 minutes and she did!

The surgical floor was full and Vic was put on the orthopedic floor which was great as this floor has the fold out lounge chairs for me to sleep in. The nurses were absolutely wonderful, offered us some food and we dined on cheese, crackers and jello. Food never tasted so good (our last meal was at lunch). And to sleep we went at 3 am.

More tests and more waiting until 4 pm on Sunday when the doctors came in to tell us there was no clot. They also said they had no idea why the one foot was swollen larger than the other; post-op edema is normal. The doc was surprised that Vic's heart wasn't able to pump out all the fluid.

Today, he looks good and says he feels better. The left foot is still swollen, but no where near the size it was on Saturday.

So what did you do this weekend?