Possibly the last blog post... happily ever after?

Mom had her dialysis port removed on 3/13! Yay! She's officially done with dialysis. She's going to be going in on Wednesday to have a procedure done to remove the small stones in her left kidney. They'll be going in through the nephrostomy tube to do this, then they'll remove that tube. They haven't decided how they're going to get rid of the large stone in her right kidney, but are talking about possibly making it "explode" and then pulling the pieces out using laparoscopy. That won't be done for another few weeks.

She's walking like a champ now and will be using the cane as soon as the neph tube is out (it's easier to strap her bag to the walker than a cane). Stairs don't really seem to be a problem and she has started taking walks outside. She only goes up and down the street, but she's hoping soon to add more road until she can go around the block.

Her hands and feet are improving all the time. She has an appointment with the foot doctor tomorrow to figure out what needs to be done with her toes. The pain is manageable, but can get to her sometimes, especially after "they've been cutting on" her to get the black/dead tissue off.

Mom's salivary glands are working again, which is making it much easier to eat... and she said it's nice not to have her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth all the time. Her face still has numbness, not sure if that'll come back. She's lost 20 pounds so far since this all began... her appetite is nonexistent and her muscles are atrophying with the lack of exercise.

We do have some updated pictures of her hands and feet.... be warned, they're further down in the post. But before I share them, here are some shots of her from this weekend when we went to visit. The scar under her nose is from the vent - the foam piece that keeps the tube off of her face was being pushed into her skin when she swelled up so fast. The other picture is her playing wii with her grandson.

Now, the wound pictures are coming up.... I'll post the original ones, then last month's and now this month's.


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Here we go, wound pics.

This is where her IV had been on the first night she went into the hospital. The area on the top of her arm had a larger area of black later that first week, but it was covered and we didn't really get a good picture of it.

January 31 or so....

Feb 24....

Today (3/23)....

 Right hand, same dates as above....

She had just had a lot of the dead tissue cut away here... 2/24

More tissue cut away... 3/23 (her thumbnail and middle fingernail are gone, index is almost ready to come off)

I want to wait until after her foot doc appointment to post pictures of her feet... so there will likely be more posts. Just not posted in a regular fashion. If you want to talk to mom, feel free to give her a call, text, or email. Things just aren't changing fast enough to have daily or even weekly posts.