Mummy - July 15, 2004 - Thursday
Early this morning, Mummy was heading for the special pooja held each Thursday at the Shiridi Sai Baba temple, a twenty five minute walk from her home. Around 5:45AM she was hit by a car and was left unattended for 30 minutes. A police jeep helped bring her home. Ramgopal, decided to take her in the same jeep to Kamineni Hospital (http://www.kaminenihospitals.com) , about 8 km from her house.
Treated so far:
surgery to repair torn urethra was completed to stop the bleeding. She was given two bottles (500 ml each?) of blood.
Scans/xrays showed four fractures:
pubic ramii bone
Sacrum (tail)
Scapula (left shoulder blade)
Proximal Humerus Fracture (ball and socket joint of the left shoulder)
http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/generalshoulder/g/humerusfracture.htm
Because of her condition (low bp, loss of blood) the doctors have told Bina that they will be providing her conventional (sling, ) treatment and they will not be operating on her.
Bina has advised us not to come until we hear more from her over the next few days.
Mummy wanted to get up and leave. Bina asked her to stay back. She said she was in pain.
Hopefully, she will recover well.
3:33 PM IST - 3:03AM PDT
Shashi Bhushan, my class mate from Osmania, wrote the following email. The previous night his father in law passed away and he was yet to be cremated when he wrote this email.
I am extremely fortunate to have some very good friends.
****
from Shashi
Dilip
I just had a discusion wit Dr.Ramanath orthopedic specialist who had evaluated aunty's condition. Following are the points
!) She suffered fracture of shoulder joint
2)she suffered pelvic fracture
3) she is concious at the momnt
4)There was loss of blood on account of external injuries which drove her BP down and further loaded cardiac function heavily.
First she has to be stabilzed systemically inluding heart beat,BP..etc (which is progresing well. there need not be any concern on that account) It would take couple of days to have her stabilized...
As far as surgery is concerned, in both the the fractures she suffered,surigical intervention (implants have to be placed for shoulder ball socket. In case of pelvic fracture implants will be put in temporarily till its fixed and healed and later through another intervention, they will be taken out), is the most effective and quickest way to fix her problems. That means, she has to under go three operations; one for shoulder joint and two for pelvic bone fracture. This won't be easy bacause of her age. Other option is to leave the patient as she is and let the natural healing take place.
This is a long drawn process and older patients develop several complications like lung infections, heart problems and above all bed sores which is the nastiest thing that can happen to one. Older patients have much lower tolerance to bedridden condition compared the younger ones. On the other hand there is also risk in going for surgery, again because of the age.
Tolerance to anasthesia and foriegn bodies, loss of blood and heart resrve are the issues of concern. But these days, things are considerably improved in India and statistics show much favourable success rates(above 80%). Real problem will be that physical excercises to be systematicallly carried out after operations. They take out a lot from best of the strong will powered patients. Once that's through, life is almost the same.
But being bedridden, frustaration and accompanying depression is often the real killer. Probably her shoulder operation may be deferred as it does not cause movements arrested.
We may have to weigh all the factors (I may have missed some) and take a decision for or againist SURGERY. ...
Think it over.
Let me know if ther is any thing I can do.
All these years aunty had God uppermost and innermost in her mind. now God has to shake a bit and do the best for her.
Lets be cheerful
Love
Shashi
****
Bina had been keeping us updated all day through my nieces who in turn passed the information to Lalita, who im'ed us on yahoo.
Narayana who drove all the way back from a business trip to Vijayawada called my at 10pm (ist), 930am pdt, to say the following:
****
Narayana called and spoke for 10 minutes.
- Mummy is still in icu
- she spoke with Bina
- she is under sedation for pain management
- they won't be doing anything on her for another month. Because of her age, they don't want to do anything.
- her shoulder thing is minor and a clean break and will heal by itself.
- pelvic is also not a complicated fracture and they hope that the bed rest for a month will heal it.
- she is getting an intravenous drip.
- under worst case conditions, what they are concerned about is pneumonia and bed sores.
- i told him that i would like to come to help. he said, there is nothing i could do that he and shashi cannot do. He will call again tomorrow to update.
I told him i am ready to leave this weekend.
- i told him about coming to give her some moral support. He said there is nothing one can do while she is in icu. I told him that i want to come when i can be of help to her and not arrive only when she is in an end state. He will call again tomorrow (evening our time or am tomorrow).
I am in a wait and see mode.
Dilip
****
Treated so far:
surgery to repair torn urethra was completed to stop the bleeding. She was given two bottles (500 ml each?) of blood.
Scans/xrays showed four fractures:
pubic ramii bone
Sacrum (tail)
Scapula (left shoulder blade)
Proximal Humerus Fracture (ball and socket joint of the left shoulder)
http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/generalshoulder/g/humerusfracture.htm
Because of her condition (low bp, loss of blood) the doctors have told Bina that they will be providing her conventional (sling, ) treatment and they will not be operating on her.
Bina has advised us not to come until we hear more from her over the next few days.
Mummy wanted to get up and leave. Bina asked her to stay back. She said she was in pain.
Hopefully, she will recover well.
3:33 PM IST - 3:03AM PDT
Shashi Bhushan, my class mate from Osmania, wrote the following email. The previous night his father in law passed away and he was yet to be cremated when he wrote this email.
I am extremely fortunate to have some very good friends.
****
from Shashi
Dilip
I just had a discusion wit Dr.Ramanath orthopedic specialist who had evaluated aunty's condition. Following are the points
!) She suffered fracture of shoulder joint
2)she suffered pelvic fracture
3) she is concious at the momnt
4)There was loss of blood on account of external injuries which drove her BP down and further loaded cardiac function heavily.
First she has to be stabilzed systemically inluding heart beat,BP..etc (which is progresing well. there need not be any concern on that account) It would take couple of days to have her stabilized...
As far as surgery is concerned, in both the the fractures she suffered,surigical intervention (implants have to be placed for shoulder ball socket. In case of pelvic fracture implants will be put in temporarily till its fixed and healed and later through another intervention, they will be taken out), is the most effective and quickest way to fix her problems. That means, she has to under go three operations; one for shoulder joint and two for pelvic bone fracture. This won't be easy bacause of her age. Other option is to leave the patient as she is and let the natural healing take place.
This is a long drawn process and older patients develop several complications like lung infections, heart problems and above all bed sores which is the nastiest thing that can happen to one. Older patients have much lower tolerance to bedridden condition compared the younger ones. On the other hand there is also risk in going for surgery, again because of the age.
Tolerance to anasthesia and foriegn bodies, loss of blood and heart resrve are the issues of concern. But these days, things are considerably improved in India and statistics show much favourable success rates(above 80%). Real problem will be that physical excercises to be systematicallly carried out after operations. They take out a lot from best of the strong will powered patients. Once that's through, life is almost the same.
But being bedridden, frustaration and accompanying depression is often the real killer. Probably her shoulder operation may be deferred as it does not cause movements arrested.
We may have to weigh all the factors (I may have missed some) and take a decision for or againist SURGERY. ...
Think it over.
Let me know if ther is any thing I can do.
All these years aunty had God uppermost and innermost in her mind. now God has to shake a bit and do the best for her.
Lets be cheerful
Love
Shashi
****
Bina had been keeping us updated all day through my nieces who in turn passed the information to Lalita, who im'ed us on yahoo.
Narayana who drove all the way back from a business trip to Vijayawada called my at 10pm (ist), 930am pdt, to say the following:
****
Narayana called and spoke for 10 minutes.
- Mummy is still in icu
- she spoke with Bina
- she is under sedation for pain management
- they won't be doing anything on her for another month. Because of her age, they don't want to do anything.
- her shoulder thing is minor and a clean break and will heal by itself.
- pelvic is also not a complicated fracture and they hope that the bed rest for a month will heal it.
- she is getting an intravenous drip.
- under worst case conditions, what they are concerned about is pneumonia and bed sores.
- i told him that i would like to come to help. he said, there is nothing i could do that he and shashi cannot do. He will call again tomorrow to update.
I told him i am ready to leave this weekend.
- i told him about coming to give her some moral support. He said there is nothing one can do while she is in icu. I told him that i want to come when i can be of help to her and not arrive only when she is in an end state. He will call again tomorrow (evening our time or am tomorrow).
I am in a wait and see mode.
Dilip
****
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