It's been an interesting last few weeks... months. I have never been to so many doctor's offices and I never knew all that getting old was so much work!
Last week we started out with 3 Doctor appointments, but by Monday I was able to reasonably talk her out of the 2nd one. We started on Tuesday with Dr. Park the Orthopedic Surgeon for her toe. The Stitches were finally able to come off! When we arrived and took a seat in the waiting room we were immediately greeted by the Doctor because he had a 2nd woman with the SAME problem! (FYI: Take care of your toes or you'll loose them) This woman looked a little older than my grandma but they were around the same age i'm assuming, but she was incredibly nervous about loosing her toe. So Dr. Park asked if we would give her a testimonial. Grandma was thrilled with the whole thing of course because she's been out of pain since the surgery. We sat with this woman and her daughter breaking down step by step how she been since the surgery and how we opted to ever consider it. I think we were able to convince her to go ahead with it and she would feel better for it in the end. But from what I could see on her feet she needed more than just the little toe removed. In the end they were happy to have heard and witnessed my grandma's story and they left. Dr. Park came in and we were out in about 10 more minutes once the stitches were removed! It had healed Beautifully!!!
Now thank goodness I was able to talk some sense into my grandma because this next appointment would have been a complete waste of time and gas! She has begun to notice a type of "air bubble" or "gap" in between her nail and the nail bed on her left hand. The only problem was she wanted to go see another Orthopedic surgeon for this... and I believed it to be not that serious, and something that could have easily be looked at by any of the other 2 doctors we were already visiting. It took about a day but she did finally come to her senses! We Asked Dr. Park but of course she was not satisfied with his response... because he specializes in FEET!
The 3rd appointment for the week was Dr. Davis her geriatric doctor she sees every 2 months. While at this appointment we discovered several things, #1 she's lost just over 20 lbs in the last 6 months!! 10 of those pounds in the last 2. Now I learned that she also still thinks she's 5'4... but well I'm 5'1ish and she is now shorter than me. A fact she is VERY uncomfortable with. Now to give a small back story on the way my grandma's brain works is that she was once a PE Major and also studied modern dance in college and maintained a pretty active lifestyle up until her 80th or so birthday. So to compensate for the lack of movement she has adjusted her eating habits (pretty smart right). Well in the last year she has cut her meals in half! When she was already eating HALF of what a normal proportion would look like. So forget taking her out to eat, those plates will last her for 3 meals 4 if she's really pushing it. Now this has always been amazing to me but it makes total sense and if more of us did this we would be struggling with the "Battle of the Bulge"! Nevertheless, I think it's too much weight to be lost in such a short period of time and Dr. Davis agrees but there seems to be no obvious medical reason for the weight loss. He ran a few labs just to be safe and we will see him in 6 weeks.
So all in all she's back to her Old Self again with a clean bill of health. By the Way, We asked Dr. Davis about her nails also and he told her almost the same thing Dr. Park told her only this time it was a satisfactory response for her... Go Figure! So she's happy with that for now, she's not loosing her nails.
On the way home after leaving UCLA I realized there were no more weekly Doctor appointments and this would now free up time to start filtering through her closets! She was NOT excited about this at all! This has been an on going battle since I brought her home from the hospital in January. She's a Pack Rat! Slowly though we will be rid of the boxes of clothes she has stored in her closet from the last 10 years. What she doesn't know is that I've secretly been throwing out all the other random paper work and magazines she's piled up around the house over the last few months. She is slowly coming around so stay tuned for this EPIC BATTLE!
Last week we started out with 3 Doctor appointments, but by Monday I was able to reasonably talk her out of the 2nd one. We started on Tuesday with Dr. Park the Orthopedic Surgeon for her toe. The Stitches were finally able to come off! When we arrived and took a seat in the waiting room we were immediately greeted by the Doctor because he had a 2nd woman with the SAME problem! (FYI: Take care of your toes or you'll loose them) This woman looked a little older than my grandma but they were around the same age i'm assuming, but she was incredibly nervous about loosing her toe. So Dr. Park asked if we would give her a testimonial. Grandma was thrilled with the whole thing of course because she's been out of pain since the surgery. We sat with this woman and her daughter breaking down step by step how she been since the surgery and how we opted to ever consider it. I think we were able to convince her to go ahead with it and she would feel better for it in the end. But from what I could see on her feet she needed more than just the little toe removed. In the end they were happy to have heard and witnessed my grandma's story and they left. Dr. Park came in and we were out in about 10 more minutes once the stitches were removed! It had healed Beautifully!!!
Take care of your feet people!!
The 3rd appointment for the week was Dr. Davis her geriatric doctor she sees every 2 months. While at this appointment we discovered several things, #1 she's lost just over 20 lbs in the last 6 months!! 10 of those pounds in the last 2. Now I learned that she also still thinks she's 5'4... but well I'm 5'1ish and she is now shorter than me. A fact she is VERY uncomfortable with. Now to give a small back story on the way my grandma's brain works is that she was once a PE Major and also studied modern dance in college and maintained a pretty active lifestyle up until her 80th or so birthday. So to compensate for the lack of movement she has adjusted her eating habits (pretty smart right). Well in the last year she has cut her meals in half! When she was already eating HALF of what a normal proportion would look like. So forget taking her out to eat, those plates will last her for 3 meals 4 if she's really pushing it. Now this has always been amazing to me but it makes total sense and if more of us did this we would be struggling with the "Battle of the Bulge"! Nevertheless, I think it's too much weight to be lost in such a short period of time and Dr. Davis agrees but there seems to be no obvious medical reason for the weight loss. He ran a few labs just to be safe and we will see him in 6 weeks.
So all in all she's back to her Old Self again with a clean bill of health. By the Way, We asked Dr. Davis about her nails also and he told her almost the same thing Dr. Park told her only this time it was a satisfactory response for her... Go Figure! So she's happy with that for now, she's not loosing her nails.
On the way home after leaving UCLA I realized there were no more weekly Doctor appointments and this would now free up time to start filtering through her closets! She was NOT excited about this at all! This has been an on going battle since I brought her home from the hospital in January. She's a Pack Rat! Slowly though we will be rid of the boxes of clothes she has stored in her closet from the last 10 years. What she doesn't know is that I've secretly been throwing out all the other random paper work and magazines she's piled up around the house over the last few months. She is slowly coming around so stay tuned for this EPIC BATTLE!
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