Updates on mom have seem to come to a standstill after her recent eight week follow up appointment with her orthopedic surgeon. Well I think I’ve spoken to soon, mom now has two, dos, duo, 2, twa orthopedic surgeons. Yes, you read that last sentence right, mom has two orthopedic surgeons the first is of course for the recovery of the broken femur which he repaired just about ten weeks ago and for which mom has been in the recovery facility for that entire time and expected to be for another 2-4 weeks, followed by some 4-6 months of requiring a walker. The second doctor, I was hoping you wouldn’t ask. About two weeks ago I was told by several different people two different stories, so grab the one you want and go with it. Story One is that while in the shower when standing up to dry off (without calling the nurse first) when mom tweaked the knee of the leg they just performed surgery on, this is causing extra pain when held or set in the wrong position or when she tries putting excess weight on it. Story two is “insert shower scene here” then as she goes to stand up she falls, injuring the knee, “insert pain situations here.” Now various people have explained it as mom told them either story one or two, some of these people are therapist and others are various staff members. Why would you not trust them when they start a conversation with, “Your mom told me that..?”
No matter the story the end result is that mom for the past week is having pain in her right knee of the same leg they just did the surgery on to repair the femur from slipping on a grape. If you have not heard this story before, please go ahead and get out your laughter, we all did when we first heard the story. Okay that’s long enough, the new issue happened at the same time the therapists started pushing mom to get her ready to start walking on her leg after being off it for 2.5 months, so everyone assumed that the pain was related to the extra therapy work. After pushing them for a week to do some more checking because I felt they knew what to look for, when one of the therapists started asking mom what she does to control the pain other than medication. Mom showed her the different ways she can lay to alleviate the pain and also what she does to set the pain off. The therapist took this to several of her peers and they are now thinking that what happened in the shower was that mom tore the meniscus in her knee which is causing the pain. The dare I say it, funny thing here is that mom’s very first knee surgery was to repair the torn meniscus in her “right” knee. On About.com (June 15, 2014) the meniscus is defined as,
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/glossary/g/Meniscus_def.htm
“The meniscus are a small, “c” shaped pieces of cartilage that act as a cushions in the knee joint. They sit between the thigh bone (femur) and the tibia (shin bone), one on the outside (lateral meniscus) and one on the inside of the knee (medial meniscus).
These crescent shaped pieces of cartilage help absorb weight within the knee during impact sports as well as provide stability during movement.”
It also happens that they will need to send mom to meet with the very same doctor who diagnosed and corrected her original tear some ten plus years ago, Dr. Mimone. This is the “second surgeon.” So she will have one orthopedic surgeon to handle the femur break and a second orthopedic surgeon that will handle her torn meniscus.
Now what’s involved for the new injury? First mom is being scheduled to meet with the orthopedic surgeon under a consult to see what his thoughts are. If he moves forward as before, mom will be then scheduled for a radiograph x-ray where they will insert dye into her, I believe via IV and after a period of time perform either a CT or MRI scan where the dye will highlight the damage. Following this another surgery as well as another two months of recovery, in Manor-Care will be required as will 1-2 months of in-home therapy. The first set from here is to schedule the consult which we hope they will have done by Monday (6/16). Until then we are all getting together tomorrow, Father’s Day and picking up mom from the home and taking her out to lunch somewhere, where exactly is unknown at this time until we all meet at 12:30 – 1:00 and decide. Talk about last minute, this is it. Check back here for more updates and if you have not figured it out, nothing is off limits with my family.
Thank you,
Richard (Kreisler)
iCareTalk.net 