She was transferred a few weeks ago to a long-term acute care hospital in San Leandro (Kindred Hospital SF). They are more specialized in dealing with conditions that require intensive hospital-level care for longer than most hospitals can handle. They do a great deal of wound care, and have experience with multi-system complications. Both of these made them a good choice.
Since she has been there, after a number of bumps in the road while they were figuring out the intricacies of her case, she has gotten much better. She has an excellent plastic surgeon who is working to remove all of the unhealthy/infected areas of her skin that have been causing her problems and pain. He has done one surgery so far, which went over far better than we'd expected, and the second (of a likely 3) will be done next week.
Mom has so far had 2 surgeries to deal with dead or infected tissue, and each one has led to her feeling better and being in a lot less pain. I fully expect the next two to do the same. We are now very optimistic about her full recovery, and are optimistic that she will regain a lot of her lost mobility. The anesthesia is always a risk with surgery, of course, but since she has always gotten through it well during this crisis, I am not seriously worried about it.
She is still restricted to bed, and can't yet really sit up, but she's doing so, so much better than she was. She's absolutely itching to get back online with all of her friends here, and to be able to talk to or check in with many people every day. She is hoping that my dad can get her a super-lightweight laptop (and mobile internet hookup), which I think might happen perhaps a month from now, once she has had the next 2 surgeries and can actually sit up in bed without pain.
My current outside estimate is that mom will be well into physical therapy (walking and such, regaining muscle tone) within 6 months, likely less. Possibly as little as 2 months. For those of you who recall, this is a far cry from her last long-term hospital stay which lasted about 10 months in 2005-06. This time she is also much healthier in general, and many of her damaged systems are healing. Her diabetes is completely under control, and her kidney function is slightly better than it was (they had shut down a while ago). She is also showing absolutely no signs of developing pneumonia, and I know she's getting lung exercise daily.
Anyway, I think that pretty much covers it. I will be with my husband's family for Thanksgiving, but I know that my Dad will be spending Thanksgiving with Mom, bringing her very tasty food. We are also planning on decorating her bed/room for Christmas, and she seems to be in very good spirits in general. I'm sure she would appreciate any Christmas cards that happened to come her way, though.
Cheers!
Renee
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I was really worried there for a while. It's really bad that someone as wonderful as Lady Carol has to go through something like that.
