I went over that night to see her - and her foot. I’m still very angry at the doctor in this case for putting this off as he did. She had first gone in and brought it to his attention on 1/3, asking him 3 questions:

1. Is this Gout? (her grandmother had gout and died of renal failure)
2. Is this related to my Diabetes?
3. Is this a reaction to the spinal cortisone injection I got in early December (for arthritis)

He said no to all of the above and sent her home with Tylenol 3 for the pain. When she called him back a week later to say that not only has it not gotten better, it got a whole lot worse - he acted shocked and surprised… “Why, that foot should have cleared itself up by now!” That’s when he sent her to the Podiatrist. When she got to the Podiatrist - She took one look at my Mom’s foot and said “I am not touching this - you need vascular studies and tests, there’s nothing I can do here.”

That’s when she was finally sent for a Doppler test - which tests the vasculature of the leg, visualizing any blockages, clots, etc. She was then referred to a vascular surgeon who put her through and MRI - which is what brought us to my last entry.

When I saw my Mom’s foot on Wednesday - seriously, I’m just a lowsy nurse, right? I’m not Einstein or anything… but one look at it just SCREAMED circulation problem. I’ve seen it a gazillion times in my practice and pretty much know it when I see it… so I’m STILL wondering what that original doctor had in mind when he sent her home with Tylenol 3??

/grumble /grumble

Fast forward to today - she has an appointment with the vascular surgeon this morning at 9am for a pre-surgical consultation. The GOOD news is that her diabetes is not advanced and her arteries are in good enough shape to go through surgical bypass. They were worried that over the years, her diabetes would have done damage to the walls of the artery making them too week to be able to do bypass surgery. That’s the GOOD news… no amputations.

The worriesome news:

1. Her left leg has complete 100% blockage of the arteries.
2. Her right leg has 50-60% blockage of the arteries.
3. Her Abdominal Aorta has ’significant narrowing’ in the lower abdominal area
4. The artery that branches off from the Aorta to the left kidney has ’significant narrowing”

Requiring:

1. A complete bypass in the left leg
2. An arterial stent placed in the right leg
3. An arterial stent placed between the aorta and the left kidney

She needs a good plumber. The surgeon is also sending her for cardiac tests today, to find out if she has any blockages in the coronary arteries, as well.

Mom says, “Whew - I’m kind of attached to my foot, ya know.” Heh.

Not the best news in the whole wide world…but not the worst either. Her risk of a stroke at this point is high, so she has to rest and take it easy until these things are taken care of - which we are hoping is sooner, rather than later. I’m hoping that she’ll be scheduled for surgery today or sometime over the weekend… how optimistic am I?

She would absolutely hear NOTHING about us postponing the wedding, or re-arranging it so that we’d have it here in WI rather than NY, so we’re going along as planned for the wedding in June. “That’s almost 5 months away, Lisa - if this isn’t all over by then I’ll go nuts!”

Ok ok. Holding our collective breath - we sent out the invitations that we were holding onto after we found out about all this. I still don’t know about the SXSW conference in March. It’s a little over a month away and it’s just too soon to know if I’ll be attending - - I guess it depends on how everything turns out this week.

Thank you, everyone, for all the well wishes sent - both in comments and in email. The situation with Mom is a touch brighter today, than when I wrote my last entry about her.