Sudden Caregiver Journey – BionicOldGuy

Over the previous 12 years or so My fantastic spouse Karen has had event to be my caregiver whereas I used to be bouncing again from a number of surgical procedures and diseases, together with hip replacements, coronary heart valve substitute, rotator cuff surgical procedure, and an inside ear drawback. From final Wednesday on I unexpectedly had the chance to pay her again.

She has been having some orthopedic points, it seems she has radiculopathy which irritates nerves the place they’re exiting the backbone, each within the lumbar and cervical areas. This was inflicting her ache in her proper arm and leg. She obtained referred to PT for this, which helped rather a lot. However her GP additionally prescribed a reasonably robust anti-inflammatory. As one other piece of background, she is on a excessive dose (80 mg) of atorvastatin (generic for Lipitor), and has been for about 20 years as a result of her ldl cholesterol had gone fairly excessive. Her GP again then suspected she had familial hypercholesterolemia, That dose has been controlling her ldl cholesterol nicely so she’s been on it ever since.

So now on to the journey. Her GP ordered some routine follow-up blood work and detected one thing humorous in her liver readings. So she despatched her for a particular hepatic panel. The subsequent day we had been doing a little errands and obtained a name from her GP: “We would like you to take Karen to the emergency room instantly, her liver readings are means off”. So we scurried off to the ER on the closest hospital, St. Louise in Gilroy. The ER physician admitted her, and he or she ended up staying 3 nights. They took her off the statin and all anti-inflammatories and ache meds, and pounded a bunch of IV fluids by means of her till her numbers got here again to regular, and we got here dwelling yesterday.

It’s nice to have her again dwelling however we’ve some necessary follow-up work to do. I’ll make an appointment together with her GP ASAP, We have to know the best way to go ahead with controlling her ldl cholesterol with out damaging her liver, and what to do to get her urge for food again to regular so she will get her power again.