It was late January or early February, shortly after we got the kitchen repainted when mom started getting these killer headaches and I would go to the stores at get different pain pills, and that head on rub stuff you apply directly to the head for relief.. Then one day I made the suggestion to maybe she might want to see the "D" word.. I'm not the type that likes to enter the idea of doing that and I didn't want to push her that direction but she had suffered from this headache for a few weeks and then there was a new symptom that she was keeping from me but would tell me a few weeks later.. So the next Monday she called to see the D.. Doctor that is and so I took her down and she got a prescription for antibiotics and was told that if this didn't work to call and they would check her out.. After taking the prescription for just a couple days she felt better and everything seemed fine.. Then that Sunday she had a return bout with the headache, and called that next Monday.. She went in to see the doctor that week and they did an MRI one her head.. They called the next day and we went in.. The day we went in was March 4, 2009 a day I won't forget anytime soon.. When we left the house here we talked about what it would maybe be and we both thought worse case scenario it would be a bad infection.. What she found out... Well when I picked her up after he appointment she was in tears.. It was much worse than we either could have imagined.. It was an infection that had eaten away at the bone that protected her brain from the upper sinus cavity.. Worse yet it was starting to erode the orbital socket, and that was why her vision was becoming erratic.. She said when she was watching tv at night the image would separate, that the two wouldn't mesh anymore.. I didn't think much of that at the time because I had the same thing happen and just thought it was from being tired, for me that was the case.. For her not the case..I remember us going over to Donald's house and telling them.. There was a birthday party for the little guy (his first) and it had to have been extremely tough being there and knowing the clock was ticking before she would have to have surgery to fix this ailment..
By the 15th of March we would be in Scottsbluff to get her hospital stuff checked on, to meet the surgeon and get anything set up.. The next day we had to go back up for something they forgot, some little something that just couldn't be taken care of the day of the surgery.. The 18th was the day of the surgery.. She was fine, I was fine.. I was nervous as hell.. The surgery scared the hell out of me, Sinus Obliteration Surgery or as I called it S.O.S. and it felt every bit that way.. They came and told us she was out of the O.R. and we decided to go eat and they gave us a pager thing and it would be fine within a three mile radius of the hospital.. It went off at one point while we were eating and all I could think was crap something went wrong.. But that wasn't the case, they were just letting us know we could see her shortly.. We got back and saw her in recovery. She looked like she had had somebody beat her about the head..
The next day I think we went and saw her and over the next few days she steadily improved.. The one bad thing was she had to have antibiotics every eight hours nonstop for the next six weeks, which turned into eight.. The bag that they removed tore when they removed it and if that infection got into her system it wouldn't be a very pretty sight.. While she was in Scottsbluff she improved so fast it was an amazing thing to watch.. Then she decided with the doctors approval to move to the hospital at home, or closer to home.. Hindsight being 20/20 that was definitely a wrong move but it was what she wanted and I thought it might be a good idea although knowing what I'd heard about that hospital I guess we should have gotten on the medical staff from the get go as they say.. the rest is well documented on other entries here ad elsewhere(I think)...
The day she found out about having the surgery, I had never heard of such a procedure.. What they do is make an incision just beyond the hairline above the forehead and peal that over the front, or towards the chin.. Then they cut the forehead bone and exposed the sinus, then sucked that puss sack out and then split the bone of the forehead and rebuilt the orbital socket.. Then he plugged the sinus holes to keep that fro being there, and let the brain fill in where the sinus was since that would be an empty place anyway and could have potentially gotten refilled with infection.. They checked their handy work a few weeks later and all was fine, an MRI showed that everything the surgeon said he wanted to have happen is what did happen.. She recovered quickly, so much so that they were amazed at how she was doing.. I felt nothing but comfort being in that hospital.. The staff and everyone involved were the opposite of how I had felt about any hospital before that.. It's strange to feel that way when it is the way it is supposed to be.. And knowing what would happen to her at the next hospital... I haven't felt that way in the home town hospital EVER!! Confidence in the medical community for me will never be the same and never exist, not that it was very good before this ordeal...
BH
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