A Long Four Days

I've been updating this blog from my phone in bits and pieces, so I thought I'd pull the events of the last four days together into a single post.


Thursday morning, we showed up at the hospital at 4:45 AM.  After dealing with Admitting and going through all of the medical history and other paperwork, Heather was wheeled in for surgery at 7:30 AM.  At 9:15 AM, I received a call from one of the nurses assisting in the surgery.  She let me know that the surgery was underway and proceeding normally.  At 11:15 AM, the surgeon came out and let me know that the surgery had gone well and Heather would be heading into recovery shortly.  At about 1:30 PM, they allowed me to go back and see Heather in the recovery ICU.  During this time, Heather mentioned that her left side didn't feel right.  The nurse said it was most likely residual effects from anesthesia.  They transitioned her to the ICU at approximately 2:00 PM.  I was allowed to see her in the ICU room at 2:30 PM.

From Thursday through Saturday morning, I watched nurses and residents perform neurological checks on Heather.  Every time her left leg and arm were very weak.  She complained of numbness on the left side of her face and left leg.  Friday night Heather was taken back for a routine MRI.

Saturday morning, the resident said that the MRI looked fine and Heather could go home.  The nurse dismissed the concerns about Heather's leg being weak and numb as a result of positioning.  Based on the nurses evaluation, she did not send in a Physical Therapist even though other nurses had tried to schedule therapy for Heather.  It was at this time that I sent an email to the surgeon letting him know that we were being railroaded out of the hospital.

Heather was discharged from St. Joseph's at approximately 11:30 AM on Saturday.

We drove home to Prescott hoping that Heather's condition would improve.

Sunday morning, nothing had changed.  I emailed the surgeon again and informed him of Heather's condition.  I was able to arrange for a Physical Therapist to come look at Heather and give an evaluation.  While we were waiting for the Physical Therapist, the surgeon replied to the email and said that Heather needed to be back in the hospital.  The Physical Therapist agreed that Heather should be re-hospitalized, so we drove back down to Phoenix.  We arrived at St. Joseph's at approximately 4:15 PM and Heather was re-admitted.

The resident re-evaluated Heather's neurological function and after pinching her left leg as hard as possible to provoke a response from Heather, stated that the weakness on the left side that she was exhibiting was not present in his previous evaluations.  It is obvious to everyone except for the resident that Heather had a stroke on Thursday that was ignored and misdiagnosed.

Heather underwent a second MRI at approximately 8:20 PM.  She has another, more detailed MRI scheduled for Monday morning.