when toby was in the hospital getting her new knee, she fell because she was heavily sedated and someone neglected to close all the rails around her.
in the middle of the night she dreamt she was home and got out of bed to go to the toilet. she fell the minute she tried to support herself on her new knee
and came down on the surgical area.
my cardiologist and friend was the first doctor on the scene and he ordered a cat scan of her chest and head, and an ultra sound of her legs. he said stat and a lot of people moved very quickly.
richard,the doctor, put her back in ICU for a day. he wanted to make sure there were no blood clots.
the knee was put in well and the glue that holds the bone to the prosthesis had done it's job. the only result of the fall was a lot of pain for a day, but the surgery held.
two days later she was taking her first steps with a walker and within a week she was able to walk up and down a few steps.
what neither of us realized was what the surgeon meant when he said, "i'll put the knee in. you have to make it work." the muscles have to be trained to make the knee work properly. toby does her exercises to get the knee to bend past 90 degrees and to stretch out to zero degrees. today we had to see a doctor at the hospital and she used a cane instead of a walker for the first time.
when she had the cat scan, right after the fall on the 14th of march, some shadows showed in the right upper lobe of her lung. the first thought that came to mind, toby being a cigarette smoker for 50 years was lung cancer. neither of us mentioned it to each other but we did go to a lung surgeon at the request of our family doctor.
my first impulse was to kill the son of a bitch. on the basis of the cat scan he decided she might have and probably does have cancer and the removal of the upper lobe would be in order. he described how he would make a 6 inch cut under the arm, seperate the ribs and remove the lobe. we were to set up an appointment for surgery in a few weeks. he also said the after effects of the surgery could be quite painful..
our family doctor sent toby to get a petscan, some kind of radioactive chemical is injected into her vein, she is scanned with some monster machine that takes slice pictures of her lungs, and if anything looks red, it points out there is cancer. the test did not indicate cancer but we were still left with whatever showed on the first catscan two months ago.
the family doctor sent her back for another catscan. using the original catscan as a base he could then see what changes had taken place in two months.
in the mean time i contacted a pulmonary specialist that i had some dealings with when i thought i had a lung problem. he said we should follow the family doctor's advice. he indicated she might have "foot steps" a bit of scarring from her recent bronchitis or the walking pneumonia she had about a year ago.
michael the family doctor called me friday night at 7:00 PM and said the catscan came back clear.
there is nothing there. it might have been an anomaly or what the pulmanary doctor said "footsteps."
whatever it was, it isn't.
both of us had stayed away from the cancer scare and held it in. lot's of stress for both of us.
it is past 24 hours since we got the good news and we are still trying to let it go,
toby still can't get in or out of the water bed, so we fall asleep next to each other on the couch.
all that remains now is for her to strengthen the leg, put the cane aside and take off for vegas for three weeks.
we both appreciate all the good feelings we felt from all of you. it comforted us. thank you all.
