Fistula Surgery Update

Diane went into the hospital at 10:30 Thursday morning (05/27/2010), to have her fistula surgery. She had kind of a long wait, as the operating room she was scheduled for was going into overtime with the previous patent.

Diane finely got into surgery at about 1:40 in the afternoon.

My sister Barb, took Diane to the hospital in the morning and stayed with her until I got off work and Belanna got out of school. At which time (about 2:45) the two of us went down there to wait for Diane to get out of surgery.

Diane got done with surgery at about 3:30. The Doctor came and talked to us that the surgery went well.
The Doc. said that Diane’s veins were smaller down close to her wrist than what he anticipated, but he thought they could be used anyway. (Remember, a fistula is where they try to make the veins larger to accept the needles for the dialysis.)

The Doc. said he thought the surgery had a 50/50 chance of being successful. If this round of surgery fails, Diane will have o go in and do it all over again, but higher up in the arm the next time.

When Diane got to the recovery room and the doctor woke her up, she was complaining about chest pains. So the Doc. gave her some blood thinner to help the blood flow. That helped with the chest pain, but it also took longer for her incision to stop bleeding. So at some point they had to add some blood thickener.

At about 6:30 Diane was pretty well stabilized and the doc. gave the OK that we could bring Diane home. The nurses unplugged the IV’s and got her dressed.

We got home at about 7:10pm.

Here it is Saturday morning. The swelling in Diane’s wrist has gone down quite a bit. We keep an ice pack on the surgery area, which helps with the swelling. It’s still a little painful for her, so she’s been taking some pain killers for that. If nothing else, Diane has been getting some good rest. (The painkillers make her go to sleep).

Other News

We are planning to make a move soon. We’ll be moving to Milwaukie, Or. For those of you who are not familiar with the area where we live, Milwaukie is the next city south of us, About 10 or 12 or so miles away.
Belanna is very excited about the move. It’ll be a wonderful new adventure in her young life.

We are still working on the SS Disability application for Diane. Damn, what a slow tedious, and frustrating process.

We’ve received no money from Diane’s short-term disability claim from her work yet. So we’re tightening our financial belt another couple of notches.

Well that’s about it for now folks. I’ll see you again in a day or two or three.

Mike