Dr. Carolyn is on the mend

In case you have missed seeing Dr. Carolyn's posts she has been sick with a bug and has been unable to post here. She has not been well for about four or five days but she seems to be improving somewhat regaining fluids which she lost. Please feel free to post a message to her from here.
Gary

Gary, I perked up quite a bit this AM when I fell in the bathroom, where I'd gone b'c I was desperate to get water to drink, b'c I was so dehydrated, fell over backwards with the walker on top of me wedged between the toilet and the wall, activated my medi-alert, and my those nice ambulance guys were here with 10 minutes and I was impressed.

I live in a small community outside the village limits and everyone who has a scanner here knew what was happening, trust me on that. My first contact person via medi-alert arrived about the same time the ambulance did b'c I knew that none of my three contact persons could get me ouot of there espcially my brother who now leves with his family in a southern state/

I still have a ways to go but am getting there.

Gary must have read the thread I put up at Tomatoville this AM about 9AM this morning b'c I had seed obligations and was supposed to send out seeds to many this past weekendwhish past weekend and felt badly that I just couldn't do it.All the seed for my own seed offer went out bby Feb nd.

I was not the only one here who had such symptoms, but from feedback mine were the worst going back to last Thursday might. I was totally useless and couldn't even get out of bed and have not been back to the LV since Sunday where my Sunday paper still sits.

And onward I go.

Thanks Gary, I appreciate it, and actually just having returned from the bathroom where I haven't been able to go b'c of the leg and body weakness due to the dehydration, nausea, dizziness, well, you get the picture. ( smile)

Good grief, Carolyn! We need to run you a water hose to the bedroom so you can get a sip from it when needed. Much easier than falling over heading to the bathroom, eh?

Hope you were well-dressed when those ambulance guys showed up, you flirt you! :>)

Wish I could help from NC. Will send chocolate, and NC well water in a jug.

Shoe (waving at Gary..long time, no see, Gary!)

Shoe- She wasnt heading to the bathroom she was in the bathroom unless she has a toliet in her hallway...I would post what my mother (who is older the Carolyn) said when the EMT men came to her house. But it would get deleted and I would get a note from admin : 0. At that moment I prayed I was adopted.

I really do hope you feel better, soon.

You sound like the Carolyn I know with lots of grit! So good to hear you are feeling better and improving! I know you are getting lots of suggestions from your tomato growing friends due to their concerns. Take care!
Gary

Carolyn: Here's a joke my brother sent me...hopefully it'll make you feel better...

A woman had invited four of her husband's officemates and their wives to a formal dinner.
At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said,
"Would you like to say the blessing?"
"I wouldn't know what to say," the girl replied.
"Just say what you hear Mommy say," the wife answered.
The daughter bowed her head and said,
"Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?"

Oh Carolyn -- So sorry for your fall. I too have a similiar problem with my legs. It is called Post Polio Syndrome and my legs are extremely weak thus I can no longer garden as I used to and also must be very careful not to fall and break a hip which is my greatest fear.
The medics are only five minutes away and have taken me to the hospital four times in three years. I know accidents happen quite unexpectedly so please take care of yourself cause we really need and love you!
Ted

I just saw over on T.V. that Carolyn fell again last night and her brother reports that she is in the Glens Falls hospital with a few stitches and I'm sure an medical evaluation.

This message was edited Feb 10, 2012 7:13 PM

Quote from another website: Hello This is Carolyn's brother. Last night Carolyn fell again and this time hit her head. She was taken to Glens Falls Hospital where she was admitted and received a few stitches. At this time they are evaluating her condition and I will keep you all posted . dave

This message was edited Feb 10, 2012 8:03 PM

Oh good grief... this is not her week,or season.

I remember Carolyn saying she has a great doc though so hoping he is checking on her and making her feel the best she can.

Hang in there Carolyn!
Shoe

Thaank you for letting us know. If you can let her know that we are thinking about her and that we wish her the best.

please let her know that i am sending good thoughts her way, hope she feels better soon !
kc

Another post from Carolyn's brother update 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I talked to Carolyn today and she is stiff and sore. Her potassium level is still low. If that number goes up she may go home tomorrow. dave

c'mon Carolyn:

Up and at'em.

You are our font of tomato-knowledge.

Eat bananas -- that'll do it for your potassium.

Be well

(o_O)

Copying and pasteing Carolyns post. I'm sure she'll be back on Daves when she gets her much needed rest,.

Yes, I'm home. And thanks to Dave for updating.

What happened is that with the pesumed virsu infection and severe deyhradration, when I got to the ER testing found I had a K level of 2.4 which is considered critical and was ASAP admited to the cardiac unit. Freda just told me that the amblulance stopped on the way to the hospital b'c I was initially graded as priority 2 and they picked up a heart monitor specialist. I have absolutely no memory of that stop to pick up another person who rode in the back with John.

More later but I didn't look at myself until I just got home and I guess my modeling days are over. I couldn't bring myself to look before now. I was shocked. Contusions, mainly on the right side of my face also the left, and told I look like a raccoon. Six stiches, blue above the right eyelid as well.

Will come back later with more details, blood all over the place here at home, fell with my right arm under me so no access to my medi-alert button. So I lay there for over an hour in pools of blood.

I was discharged and am now handed over to my county services, for Nurses to monitor the K, initially a total reevaluation, PT, home health iaide. no showers for me now b'c both legs were strained and who knows what in both falls. Probably meals on wheels.

One doesn't go to a hospital to sleep and I've practically none since last Wednesday. About 200 e-mails to check, when I can, I'm not going out in the LV b'c it wasn't a walker problem and everyone knows, it was K problem, but I have a bit of a psychological problem regaining confdince in my body and head, so I wait. The fall on Tuesday was also the K problem.

Again, thanks Dave, and now I'll call you and be back here when I can. I'm exhausted, want to go to bed, but have to be carieful getting up b'c if light headedness.

Thanks so very much to all of you. I still have the mail to look at saw some requests, still have seeds to pack for Europe and Seed vendors, but it waill just have to wait.

Oh my goodness...

The best note here is hearing it was a potassium loss or imbalance and that can be remedied. Another best note is she's out of the hospital and home again, a good sign.

I wonder if chocolate offers potassium? *grin

Thanks for posting, Nancy.

Shoe

Get well soon.

Hi Carolyn - Hope you are doing better as each day goes by. I too have been knocked out of the gardening arena so I feel your pain. Get well soon! Ed King

She must be feeling a little better. Obviously her typing is working better. Great news
Quote"It would be you Ami, and several others, who might question how the K could drop when you know my love for bittersweet chocolate.

But yes, they do know why the K dopped, and it wasn't dietary and it won't be fixed with diet.

It's quite well known, although wasn't to me, that it isn't uncommon when one has a GI viral illness with profound dehydration that K can drop very badly, and that was the cause. THey see it in the cardiac unit quite often.

To put it in perspective, the initial reading was 2.4, which is considered critical in terms of possible heart damage. The initial goal to be reached for me was, to make this easier, 3.4. That's not just one point b'c values are based on a log scale, so to reach 3.4 it's 100X greater than 2.4, which no dietary anything can do or I would have gladly eaten 10 lbs of chocolate and 10# of bananas.

To get the level up I was on continous IV infusion of K in normal saline each bag being a liter, aka 1000 ml. And I can't tell you how many bags it took, I think perhaps 6 and it takes many many hours for each bag to go in. Since I couldn't sleep anyway I watched the digital read out as about the only thing I could do. Aha, I just remembered, it was set for 50 ml/hour, so you do the math.

It has to be that slow b'c K is caustic and burns going in via IV which is what happened in the ER b'c they didn't use K in normal saline to get K in quicker. So it burned going in.

When one electrolyte goes off others can too and with me it was magnesium so that had to be infused from a separate bag. And yet another bag for an antibiotic which is used when there's head injury. Also many X rays were taken of the facial area to be sure there were no broken bones. I liked the one where you had to keep your mouth open and the x-ray goes in via the open mouth to check the cervical vertebrae b'c I really hit the floor badly when I fell and there was concern about spinal column injury. The x-rays were negative.

To answer another question that was aksed. NO, I am not normally dizzy or anything like that but had spent almost two weeks on my back in bed so when one goes from a prone position to upright the blood pressure changesl thus the light headedness for a minute or two. I had to ring for help every time I needed to use the commode and at one piint I experienced vertigo with the ceiling spinning. I was ASAP told , while flat, to hug myself and look at my toes, and that stopped the vertigoASAP. Interesting. Wish I'd known that when I was younger and had one too many, ahem.

So I have many liters of fluid in me which means frequent trips to my bathroom, about every two hours, and that's the same place where I fell last Tuesday.

My two cats were so happy to see me that they were running around and messed up the runner rug in the bathroom and it's a bit dicey getting in there right now, but Freda will be here about 9 AM with the prescription for K pills, which I've been told are evil to take, so we shall see. Blood has to be taken now on a regular basis to assess the stability of the K level. So I'm hopeful that the County nurses will be here to do that on Wednesday, but first one nurse comes to do an evaluation as to which services I need, which may not be until tomorrow, Tuesday.

Freda isn't here normally on a Monday but has lots to do here.

PT for sure b'c with both falls both legs had muscle strains and those need to be worked with via PT. Also covered with contusions and deep bruises.

Yes, to know me is to know that I asked LOTS of questions, and it has been a learning experience. I'm OK with human infectious disease but know not much about electrolyte balances and what normal values are. There are suggested normal values, but different people handle electroytes differently Yes, on has a K level determined via blood testing but that doesn't indicate what the functional value in the tissues is, thus the monitorying by the County nurses taking blood to have sent off to Glenns Falls Hospital for testing.

Does that help? To wit, chocolate, bananas, can't help when the K level is that low.

I want so much to be able to read but the swelling around the right eye, the side I fell on ,doesn't allow for me to do that yet.

And now to go yell at my two cats, to get off my bed. The brilliant one knows enough to move but the less brilliant one, well, let me say no more.

Dr. C!!!
You DO manage to keep busy, don't you? And, once again, you manage to teach us something we didn't know -- Potassium levels and their individual natures!

So glad to hear you're on the mend, and be careful around the kitties. Don't need them tripping you up, when you finally do get up again!

Hugs!

Linda

Carolyn, just catching up on your saga of the last week. So sorry to hear about all your troubles, but as you have proven, you can't keep a good woman down for long! Thanks for enlightening all of us about K levels. And I sure didn't know the info about electrolyte balances, just that it's important to ensure you replenish electrolytes, especially when exercising a lot.

I can share some tripping stories with you...I tripped while jogging last summer. Cracked the orbital bone below my right eye and had a nice bruiser for about a week plus the usual scrapes and scratches from the fall. Went to the ER to be checked out and that was a real interesting visit in itself. Of course the first thing they think when they see a lady with my injuries is spousal abuse. Once my DH came in the room and I explained how I got my injuries, all was well. My DD, who workes in the ER as a nurse, also came down to give us moral support that day, so we ended up having a bit of fun. The next day I saw my regular Doc and he said I could expect some weird things with my eye as a result of the muscle injury around the eye. He was right.

So take care of yourself and just be glad you aren't tempted by spring/summer temperatures outside.

Get Well Soon

Just dropped in to wish you well Carolyn. You are a huge part of this forum, we need you. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Just a quick update,

I am not on the mend, things are getting worse.

An abcess broke tis afternoon which is adjacent to an area of real concern. Just got a call back from the Health Clinic and an antibiotic will be called in in the AM.

The Case Manager at the hospital told me to call the local clinic this AM to be sure the referal from the Hospital got there, It didn't. Blood needs to be drawn by the County nurses on Wednesday to start monitoring the K I'm now taking in pill form.

I can hardly see. Right eye almost totally shut, elft also swollen, Yes,a series of X-rays were taken of all areas of the head as is normal procedure for primarily head woulds, all were negative for fractures or breaks. Other areas of me bod are starting to hurt worse and new areas as well.

Remember that I fell twice last week, once on Tuesday, ambulance guys fot me up, then the really bad one late Thursday night.

As I rold Pat, the head nurse at the Clinic whom I know well, and she knows it also, I'm almost always upbeat, but that stance is wearing very thin right now.

Pat will try and track down the referal to Country Services and call me tomorrow.

Carolyn

Carolyn,

I am so sorry that you are having the problems you've been having. I wish I could share my potassium with you! Since my kidney transplant failed and I've been back on dialysis, the electrolytes have been my major issue. Last month my potassium was just over 7...which is also very bad. I consider myself fortunate, because I haven't had too many associated problems.

You are an inspiration to me, to keep gardening and growing my tomatoes. I figure that if you can push past the issues you've had and continue to have to grow and share tomatoes and seeds then I can certainly keep after it. Thanks for sharing your time, energy, and expertise with all of us on Dave's Garden and the other Internet groups in which you participate.

David R

David, Im not sure if you realize how much of an inspiration you are. Hang in the Carolyn, we all wish you well.

Carolyn, sorry for your misfortune. You just keep thinking about all those pretty and tasty tomatoes and will surely get better.

Dreaves and Dr. C,
You are both in my prayers!

Carolyn, I haven't been following this forum and just became aware of your situation. I'm thinking of all the help you've given folks, including me, and wishing and hoping for your swift recovery!

Carolyn:

Enough with aches and pains -- if it's not too latre -- won't you please be my Valentine?

Be well

(o_O)

Still thinking of you Carolyn. Sending best wishes.. Please keep us updated. Miss you!

I say we just all jump on a bus and head on over to Carolyn's place!

Dr sorry you have these health problems.

I have allways enjoyed your post.Especially the ones ending in Smile.

The big K got me three trips in the red and white. The third got me a pacemaker and a salt free diet yuk. After 2 years I can have a little salt.

So sorry to hear of your problems. Falling seems to be a problem when we get older.

You folks keep talking about K. What is it? I know about potassium etc. but not sure what the K is. Thanks,

Jeanette

Potassium it's a very important electrolyte. When it's too low it can cause serious problems. It's also the last # on a fertilizer container. But I am soooo not going there. So not only is Carolyn healing from the falls themselves but trying to heal from what's causing the falls.

Jeanette,

K is the chemical symbol for potassium. The medical types use that as the abbreviation.

I think Carolyn needs to be potted up.

lol ^

Potted up, or not, another update.

There's always something else that's unexpectred. THe RN was here on Friday to draw blood for the K level and she looked at my forehead and asked if that huge bump that's appeared hurt. I said yes, It was very hot and she became conceerned b'c it's just above where the stiches are above my right eye.

She now has to report to my own local MD, called, and spoke with Pat, the head RN there and they both knew I was talking amoxicillin for another reason. Pat said she thought the amoxicillin would help and would tell Dan, my doc, and if he thought differently she would call Connie, the Public Health RN.

Today it still is tender and warm, maybe softer, but the concern is that infection might move to the stich area so I'm supposed to be looking for seepage from that area.

The right eye is still pretty much swollen shut, left eye OK, but since it's hard to see close up I've been doing very little posting anywhere, just when absolutely necessary.

When I find out what the K level is I'll try to post.

Yesterday I HAD to pack up some tomato seeds no matter what. One was a situation where I sent seeds to someone in Wales and it was returned saying undeliverable and no forwarding address. I e-mailed Emma and told her I used the same address I always did when sending her seeds, so I had to repackage those.

Another one is a big trade I'm doing with someone in Russia and that had to be done.

I also have several new ones from my SSE listings, seeds to send friends, and seeds to send to those seed sites for trial where I always have done so in the past.

So onward I go but I sure am not progressing as I had hoped for.

Carolyn

Glad you posted an updated, Carolyn. We've all been thinking about you and hoping to hear some better news of course as to progress.

Stay warm and don't over-do! Hope this is only a bump in the road and that progress WILL occur soon!
Elaine...from the South, whose weather doesn't know what to do yet