pawpawshome-blog

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Chapter 3

Well, after the surgery, the telltale MRI, and dealing with the constant pain, we’re right around the corner from Christmas.

Christmas was coming one way or the other and all the family would be at our house. Christmas this year fell on a Sunday. The family all got together Friday late afternoon and had our dinner and family gift exchange. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in this family is usually reserved for being with immediate family.

Christmas Eve morning I wake up to a loud thud. I waited in bed for a minute trying to figure out what I heard. When I finally woke up enough, I realized that it came from dad’s room.

When I tried to open the door to his room there’s resistance against the door. I hear him say to wait a second which I did. Then I was able to open the door only partially only to see him on the floor.

I asked what happened and he just said he fell trying to grab the chair. Don’t ask me how that happened because the chair is only about 3’ from the bed; but no matter at this point.

I got him up off the floor and back into the bed. Dessa came in and helped me get him as comfortable as we could. I asked dad if he wanted to go to the ER and get x-rayed and he declined saying he didn’t think anything was wrong. Both Dessa and I have seen our share of broken hips and neither of us were sure as there was no difference in leg length.

Finally around 11:30a he was evidently in enough pain that he was then ready to go to the hospital. He didn’t want to go by ambulance at first, but after a little convincing that he’d really be hurting if we attempted to get him there by car, he conceded.

So…we’re at the hospital and X-rays have been done, and sure enough, he’s broken the top portion of the femur bone (the femur is not only the longest bone in the body, but also happens to be the bone that connects the upper leg to the hip).

From about 12:30p until about 7:00p we had not seen the Orthopedic doctor nor had we heard anything from him. When he did finally show up, he confirmed what we already knew. He told us he would be operating in the morning (Christmas Day) and that dad couldn’t have anything to eat after 9:00p.

Dad ate a little and he fell asleep. I fell asleep in one of those nice comfortable reclining plastic chairs. Think my back was hurting before, I was thankful for having my pain meds with me.

In the morning, they came in and said they’d be taking dad down for surgery around 11:00a for a noon surgery, and that he couldn’t have anything to eat or drink until after the surgery was over.

At this point I should tell you a couple things about the facility he was at. I won’t use any commercial names as I have family employed by them and I don’t want them to have any problems or repercussions. This hospital has had a less than stellar reputation for the last several years, but, it’s also the only hospital in the area that we were familiar with the surgeons. Incidentally, the surgeon is top notch, the facility and ancillary staff is what’s lacking. Hence, the reason I didn’t leave dad alone there overnight. Unfortunately, the surgeon is only as good as the people and facility he has to work in. That was another reason we wanted the doctor we chose. We felt like with his skill, we could overcome the facility handicap. In hindsight, I wonder if we shouldn’t have opted for the other major hospital in the area. Oh well, can’t cry over spilt milk (well you can, but it won’t do much good).

They came and got dad about 12:30p and we followed him down. Hanging around him for the next couple hours in the pre-op area we were laughing and joking and generally having some quality time passing the nervous time. We were the only patients in the pre-op area. Remember, this is Christmas Day.

Finally about 2:30ish they came and took him back. We were told that the surgery would last between 2 ½ - 3hrs depending on how dad did.

At about the 3hr mark, the orthopedic surgeon came out and told us that his portion of the surgery went textbook perfect. However, when anesthesia was bringing him out of the sleep, there was a complication. The anesthesia team was in with him now and would be out shortly to speak with us. When questioned about the complication, the surgeon only said they they were having trouble bringing him around.

About five minutes after the surgeon came out, the anesthesiologist came out and explained that dad had an incident and his heart stopped briefly for less than 30 seconds. He was now stable and they would keep him intubated (on the ventilator) throughout the night to give him a chance to recover. He would be going up to ICU for the night.

ICU’s at this hospital had specific visitation times so we had to wait until we were allowed back. When we were allowed back, they told us he was very agitated. When we got to the room, we saw why. He had completely awoke from the anesthesia and still intubated.

One of dad’s biggest wishes was that we not allow any life prolonging efforts be made to save him. He was understandably upset that he woke up with this tube down his throat. So were we!

While I was trying to calm dad and let him know this was not the end and we weren’t trying to keep him alive, Dessa was with the nurses trying to figure out what could be done to calm him. I wanted the tube removed. Both Dessa and the staff convinced me that would not be advisable. It took about 10min to get it thru to him that we were not trying to prolong his life and that he needed to have the tube in just through the night to help him heal better (at least that's what I kept telling him. The truth was, they needed to keep his airway stable in case he were to have another episode). In the meantime, Dessa got the nurses to start a propofol drip (also known as Diprovan), to induce sleep/coma so he would be more calm and rest through the night.

That was the longest 20min I’ve ever been through till the medicine took effect. He fought it all the way till it took over. The whole time he kept mouthing to me "Help Me!!" See, he couldn't speak with the tube down his throat. I was helpless. I couldn't do anything to help him that wouldn't have put him in worse danger. Finally he was resting and comfortable. No pain, and no agitation. His vital signs were stable and he seemed to be doing well. The nursing staff suggested we go home and get some rest. We could come back in the morning in time for them to extubate him. We agreed and after a long tiring day, we left for the house.

We got home, got comfortable and I walked across the street to my son’s house to fill him in on the events of the day. I don’t think we were home more than 30min when the nurse from the ICU called my phone.

“Mr Kravitz, this is your father’s nurse from the hospital. I’m afraid your father has taken a turn for the worse. Do you want us to use life saving techniques?”

Having spent almost 5yrs working in that hospital (back when there was no better place to come if you needed emergency medical help), in the ER as a specialty "Trauma Tech," I had seen similar cases in the past. One thing I knew was that once someone has this type of "episode" where their heart stops, no matter how briefly, I had never known anyone to survive for very long afterward. Usually later on that night they would pass. But, this was my dad. He was "Superman." He could fly (or at least that's what he told us when we were kids). Not him, he couldn't die. He was Bob Kravitz aka SUPERMAN, 007, and all the rest of my super heroes.

As I ran back across the street to Dessa, I kept the nurse on the line saying I’m almost there, please hang on. When I got home, I quickly told Des what was going on. She took the phone from me (by now I was in shock), and told the nurse no life saving heroics. Try and keep him alive until we get there, but no heroics.

By the time we got back to the hospital, dad was gone. We went into the back and I was totally distraught. What happened? I kept asking. He was fine and stable when we left. What happened?

Dad was gone!! My father, aka Superman, aka 007, aka dad, was gone at 87yrs old. Once again, I had to say the prayers for the recently departed as I did with mom some 10yrs earlier. This time, it was much harder. I was alone now. Both my parents were now dead! My heart was broken.

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Chapter 2

So, now we're here at the next phase. My back is in pain constantly. The pain radiates down both legs, middle back and I have trouble walking or standing. We (Dessa & I) decided it was finally time to consider the surgical option. I got the required referral and went to a local neurosurgeon that I trusted. Apparently I had seen him in the past but didn't remember. When I got to his office he took his X-rays and squeezed and felt around before suggesting his version of what would be necessary. This Dr wanted to do the most radical surgery available. Which included a Lumbar diskectomy and spinal fusion. I would be in a brace for the better part of 4-6mos. It would be a good year before I would be even close to what I am now assuming the surgery was a success and didn't fail, in which case I'd be a hole lot worse off than I am now. We scheduled the surgery for the following week (it happened that the office appointment was on a Wednesday). Dessa started talking around to her staff and come to find out, the local doctor did not perform the entire surgery. He brought in another orthopedic surgeon to do the disc fusion part. It turns out this other dr has a nasty reputation for having one of the highest infection rates in town. He's also known for having the most post surgical complications. Needless to say...We CANCELLED the upcoming surgery as fast as we could dial the phone. Interesting thing was, they never called to find out why we were cancelling. I'm guessing they already knew the answer. I just couldn't believe that this surgeon whom I had the utmost respect for would align himself with someone so sloppy. Still convinced (although mistakenly), that surgery was the best option, we got a referral up to Birmingham UAB. The flawed thought process was that, this is a teaching school. They'd be up on all the latest and greatest options and techniques. It took about three weeks to get an appointment with this new doctor, but we finally arrived at the day of the office visit. The doctors office took their X-rays and did their touchy-feely routine on me. Finally we saw the neurosurgeon. His version was to make a small one inch incision and perform what he called a "micro-diskectomy." Allegedly, this procedure works on 90%+ of everyone it's performed on. Most patients get up after surgery and are pain free!!! All we could say was how soon could he do it. It seemed like a much less invasive procedure with much better results. The surgery was scheduled out for three weeks into the future. Talk about a long wait. The day finally arrived and we got to the hospital at the appointed time. They first came in to get my IV started. That should have been my first red flag. It took four nurses and two different doctors to try and get my IV started. Over TWENTY sticks later, they finally got a vein right where I told them to stick me from the very beginning. A couple hours later and they rolled me back to surgery. Coming out of the anesthesia, I remember being in tremendous pain. I don't know how many times they filled me up with dilaudid before I had finally shaken the anesthesia enough to be moved to recovery. I was in recovery what seemed like an hour or more when I asked to use the bathroom. As I stepped off the gurney, both my legs went out from underneath me. The staff caught me and helped me walk to the bathroom. The pain was severe. I knew then that the procedure had failed. However, the staff insisted that I had had quite a bit of manipulation and that I might be sore for a few days. They assured me that it would pass and this was the case on some folks that had as much done as I did. We went back home later that day with another bottle of pain killers. After a week I called and told the nurse that I had not felt any relief and that in fact, I felt worse than before the surgery. She told me to give it another week that sometimes it takes a while for all the swelling to subside. Ten days later I called and explained to the nurse that I was not getting any better. A couple days later they had me scheduled for yet another MRI. As I had always done in the past, I immediately got a copy of the MRI and the radiologists report. After reading through the entire report, I came to the last sentence. "Patient appears to be worse off now than compared to the pre-operative MRI." We were NOT HAPPY!!!!

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Chapter 1

Dr B (name withheld to protect innocent) looked at the MRI and saw some "mild herniation" to the Lumbar region, but said he did not find anything to explain all the pain and discomfort I was experiencing. This would go on for several years before everything could be understood. It also gave my employer time for the statute of limitations to run out on me being able to file any kind of claim. Ever get the feeling like the deck was stacked against you from the start? By the time someone finally heard my pleas for help, it was late 2013. It was a relief to know that I wasn't crazy and that something indeed was wrong with my back. The pain radiated all around my lower back and down both legs. I was having trouble sitting, standing and walking. Three of the Lumbar disks were herniated. To make matters worse, the sciatic nerve had gotten pinched in between one of those herniated disks and that's what was causing all my leg pain. Anytime I sat, bent, stood, walked or tried to do anything with my legs, there was severe pain. My wife Dessa and I had done all the research about people with this condition and looked at the success rate for those who chose surgery to correct the problem. We'll...the success rate was not very encouraging. About 60/40 chance of getting better or becoming worse off than to start with. Not really odds I considered to be in my favor. I was already seeing a pain specialist who was helping try to control the extreme discomfort I was dealing with everyday. Unfortunately all he could do was to prescribe narcotics that did little more than take the edge off. The problem with narcotics is not only do they have undesirable side effects like depression and constipation, but after only a short time your body needs more and more to reach the same level of comfort as you needed to start with. Kinda like a rabbit hole without Alice at the end. We made constant changes to the meds over a period of a couple years until finally we were at a maximum point of intake. The choice was to continue with what I had, or stop taking it altogether. The later was not an option. The pain was to severe.

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Introduction

This is my second attempt at creating a personal blog. Let see if I can do this without screwing it up this time The journey you are about to begin reading has its roots about 8 years ago. What happens from that point will bring us to current. The characters in this blog will be as follows. If your smart enough to read this from the beginning, you can always come back to this page to reacquaint yourself with who and where the characters are. First of all, I'm Brian. You'll meet my wife of 27 years Dessa aka Des, my son Josh, my grandson Hunter, my father Bob aka dad, my brother Butchie aka Butch aka shithead, and a few other characters whose names I'll mention as they become necessary. Hunter's mother's name is Nikki, however her and my son Josh have been divorced since Hunter was about 6mos. Hunter has primarily lived with Des and I or spent time with his father Josh. I think they try and be good parents, they just can't seem to get a handle on the whole parenting thingy. They haven't quite figured out that the child's wants and needs come before their own. Other than that, they do a pretty fair job. Funny, I remember when Des and I decided to tie the knot. Seems we gave up our party lifestyle and with the exception of the occasional once or twice a month sanity outings, we stayed home and took care of our son (Josh was 4 when I met Dessa. His bio father didn't have a whole lot to do with him during those years). I guess Josh considers me to be "dad" and his real dad just someone that calls him every so often. I was in nursing school at the time (8years ago) and working full time in the local "Trauma Center," which at that time was working on getting their "Level 1," status. This meant that any/all types of emergencies could and would be handled in our E.R. I had the distinction of being the only "Trauma Qualified Tech," in the entire Tri-County area. All that title gave me, was the ability to be a part of anything that rolled through the doors. Did I say anything? I mean anything. From gunshot victims to superficial hangnails. I was called upon to handle it all. Not by myself of course. There was always a physician and a couple nurses close by if needed. On to the gist of my story. The ER was hopping that evening. We were short staffed as usual and had just finished taking care of a 500lb woman who had had a stroke. She was completely paralyzed on one side. We were having a difficult time getting her a bed on the "Neurological" floor so yours truly was tasked with taking care of her comfort needs. One of those needs happened to be turning her every hour so she would not develop any bed sores. This was SOP with this type of patient. Unfortunately for me, I was the only tech on duty that evening. I went to move her and when I did...I both felt and heard the "POP" as my lower back gave way under this enormous woman (500lbs was not an exaggeration). Apparently my co-workers thought nothing was wrong and continued to bark orders as I came crawling out of the room barely able to stand. To make a long story a bit shorter, it took almost 5 years and numerous MRI's and Neurologists before they finally determined that I had multiple herniated Lumbar disks along with degenerative disk disease and a few other ailments caused by that one incident. This is where our story will truly begin. Stay tuned. There's a lot more exciting things to come.