Carrie Hranac

Caring for Our Mothers

Recently, my mother, age 52, has undergone two spinal surgeries on her neck since March 8. The first was to correct bulging discs that were pinching nerves, causing numbness in her fingers, and after waking up in excruciating pain at 10 days post op she was admitted to the local emergency room for pneumonia and they also tested her TWICE for the flu, now, if you've never had the flu test before you should hope you never have to! She was given these tests once in the ER and once after being admitted and taken to the pulmonary wing. These tests made her jerk her head back so hard that we are convinced this caused her to move too much after her spinal fusion operation and it pulled the hardware loose from its position. We were not able to make it in to see her surgeon until she was four weeks post op from her first surgery; he was very upset that he was never notified about her being admitted, and was concerned that her hardware had shifted. Come to find out after several appointments with primary doctors and pulmonary doctors, she actually did not have pneumonia or the flu while she was in the hospital, and was formally diagnosed with sepsis, which she had no symptoms of while she was admitted.