Update following surgery

well my mum had the surgery and came out without having another stroke (sometimes when they remove a clot or something a bit breaks off and then you have another stroke) which is really good news. She didn't recover as fast as the doctors would have wanted - she was bleeding internally for longer than normal, and she wasn't breathing by herself and was breathing too shallowly to disperse all of the anaesthesia.

About 10am today she stopped bleeding internally so they've removed the drain from her heart area. Which means there are less open wounds/ potentail sources of infection. When they tried to reduce the work the breathing machine was doing last night (trying to make her breathe by herself) she stopped breathing each time - but they started her up again with the machine and tinkered with her drugs.

She is feeling very sick and was sick (well, nothing in her stomach so she was bringing up bile) as soon as they took the tubes out from her throat and replaced them with an oxygen mask. She has a stomach ache now and because they think that's linked to the anaesthesia (that she's not getting out of her system) they won't let her lie down even though she wants to.

She's got tubes in her neck, one in the back of each hand, and one in the right elbow. Which makes drinking and eating a bit painful. It makes me feel faint to think about that aspect, but I've had it easy - I think my dad is completely traumatised, because he was there for the whole not breathing being sick thing last night. And it must be horrific to see the person you love, or anyone at all really, hooked up to that many machines.

Still, she's fully awake now and just very, very cross. Which is better than the woman in the bed next to hers because she had a post-operation stroke and appears to be brain-dead. Mum gave the anaesthetist an earful this morning and seems to be completely fine from a mental point of view (obviously no sight in her right eye still, which I forget and then stand on her right side...).

Hopefully she will be taken out of the Cardio-thorassic Intensive Care Unit soon. They were hoping to move her this afternoon but as she's recovering slowly I'm not sure if she will be moved then or not. She's not drinking enough, so when we turned up we made her tea (Earl Grey - she doens't drink typhoo stuff) and she drank two cups whilst we were there. The doctors are concerned she's not drinking enough and is currently dehydrated.

My brother and I have to get ourselves tested for this Atrial Myxoma thing; apparently it can be hereditary. Seeing as it is very rare in the first place and the median age for having one is about 56 I'm not that bothered. I need to read more about it - I'm not sure whether it's that you have your first stroke at 56 or whether the polyp starts forming then. They said that the polyp my mum had could have been growing since birth, or middle age, but they don't know. I think that I'll go to my GP and arrange to be tested (it's an echo cardio thing, rather like a baby-scans) sooner rather than later.

I'm at work now but finding it hard to concentrate on much so I thought I'd update this. It's never a picnic recovering from surgery, least of all when you were not in tip-top condition to start with. When dad called yesterday evening to say she was out of surgery Iwas so relieved (I had been sleeping, so relief set in when Mr W woke me up, just to be pedantic). I hadn't realised there was so much after-surgery risk. Not so much the risk even - just seeing my mum sitting in a chair, half blind, hurting to breathe, unable to cough, unable to be comfortable (because she can't lie down and they won't let her doze off), it's quite a painful thing to watch. Mr W is a tower of strength, he's had more surgery than most and he's asking questions of all of the consultants and anaesthetists.