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Originally Posted by 1st amg
Hey Tom, I do not want to be that guy who tells the story of things that did not go so well, but here it goes. My mother at 78 had an aortic valve replacement as well as the aortic arch which is just above the aortic valve in October. The surgeons of course always give you the possibilities of complications etc. Anyway, dropped her off that morning in October, they performed this surgery and I was waiting for them to call later that evening when I could see her. Rather than receiving a call from the cardiac surgeon, it was a neurologist from the stroke team who called and said after the heart surgery, when they started the process of "waking" her up they noticed she had no response on her right side. She had suffered a severe stroke from the blood that left the heart area and formed clots in her brain. They needed me and my brother to get to the hospital to sign and authorize this brain surgery to try and remove the blockage/clot on the right side of the brain. If not performed, she would run the reality of never getting out of bed and losing all cognitive functions. Of course, we gave the go-ahead.
She came out of the brain surgery where she now has expressive Aphasia. She basically lost all her speech and all ways of communicating ie writing, printing, and reading more than three words at a time. She had completely lost her speech and has suffered loss of functions on her right side. The worst nightmare happened. Since October, she has been admitted to in-patient stroke rehab, and her world along with all of ours is upside down. They have rehabbed her to the point she can walk unassisted, albeit very slowly and awkwardly, she can put four words together, albeit slurred and distorted. What she still has thankfully is cognition. She knows everything that is going on, has an opinion as usual, and has a will/determination to fight. I did not want to be the story that you do not want to hear, but the reality is, that our family did not have such a good outcome. The good news I suppose is that her heart belongs in the Six million dollar man.
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I’m truly sorry to hear this Nicholas. I hope that she can still get the most out of life with her limited speech and mobility issues.
We had a similar (but medically different) scare with my mom about a year ago. She contracted a Strep A blood infection (we still don’t know how) and we almost lost her. She spend 1 week in emergency and 6 weeks in intensive care. She stroked out once during this time as well.
Remarkably, she has made a full recovery and lived independently for a short while afterward. She finally decided to move to supportive living to be closer to my dad who is now in long term care.