Taking Care of Mom: August 2008

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Dr. Ennis- St. James Hospital Olympia Fields, IL

Since last posting update, mom has had the great toe on her left foot amputated.
The lesson learned here was that she needed to be on IV antibiotics right away, IV enterprenim, early enough in order to have given the toe a chance to be saved. Combined with femoral artery stent to the leg. The MD, who I shall not name, (back home) gave oral antibiotic meds and it did not put a dent in the infection. I feel very bad, because hindsight is 20/20 here. With better resources and information fro the beginning, I feel we could have saved the toe.

Dr. Kavros and Dr. Turner and Mayo Hyperbaric did all they could. The toe left us the weekend prior to Memorial Day. Now, We have an area where the toe has been removed which had been slow to heal. My mother cannot have hyperbaric anymore because her TCP02's are at a level where it will not make difference. it is as good as it is going to get. The toe is going forward with healing by using the expertise of Dr. Kavros, circulator boot, and celleration mist therapy.

I fielded a call from the Celleration company, who pointed out to me that a potential customer/Doctor found out about them from my blog! They asked me if I heard of Dr. William J. Ennis. I had not. It took awhile to get in to see him. I called for the appointment at the beginning of August. He is in demand. We patiently waited until our appointment today.
Meeting Dr. Ennis was time well spent. He has the Celleration mist technology available at his Wound Care Clinic at St. James Hospital in Olympia Fields,Illinois.
phone ( 708) 747-4000. Mom will be going to his office for mist therapy once a week in conjunction with continuing her weekly visits at Mayo with Dr. Kavros to help healing of this area. It was comforting to mom to learn that he knew Dr. Kavros very well and they can communicate on helping her with the healing of this area.

We were told By Dr. Kavros that this would would be slow to heal. When you hear this, the idea is not to give up, but do whatever you can to help bring circulation to the area. We did stenting, which gave the opening for more circulation to go down to her foot. We did hyperbaric. We will continue to do celleration mist and boot therapy.
My thoughts are, boot therapy for mom would be good for maintenance long term even after this wound heals.

Thank You Mayo Women's Heart Health Clinic - Rochester MN

Our First journey to Mayo Clinic was on 5/17/2004.
My mother had a low ejection fraction. She needed to receive a cardiac clearance to be placed on the kidney transplant list.
Her doctors in the Womens Heart Clinic at Mayo, helped her to feel well again and her recent electrocardiogram results shows good results.
My mother was blessed with being assigned to Dr. Sharonne Hayes and her assistant and Nurse Practicioner, Dalene Bott- Kittslaar.
In "Taking Care Of Mom", it is described in detail how Dr. Hayes helped improve my mother's heart function. She made it possible for her to be well to be placed on the kidney transplant list. We are forever greatful for knowing her and Dalene.
We would like to thank the following doctors who particpated in the care of her heart:
Dr. Sharonne Hayes,
Dalene Bott-Kittslaar( nurse practicioner and assistant to Dr. Hayes), Dr. Raymond Shields, Dr. Amy Williams.
My mother had 3 angiograms at St. Mary's Mayo Hospital. The doctors and nursing team there give superior care and were extremely attentive to her.
Dr. Raymond Shields helped care for my mother when she has a blood clot in her right hand and helped her to save her fingers when a hospital in Illinois wanted to remove them.
Dr. Amy Williams helped us through many difficulties with dialysis and dealing with the many mysteries of end stage renal disease. Her intervention helped my mother to feel better while on dialysis.

Thank You Circulator Boot Corporation

Thank You
Joe Mackowski
Maggie Macguiren Of Circulator Boot Corporation

You didn't know me from Adam, yet,you took all the time in the world to help a total stranger calling you from off the internet to help save her mother from an amputation.
You helped point me in the right direction.
You educated me about The Circulator Boot
( http://www.circulatorboot.com/).

You helped refer
me to:
Dr. Thom W. Rooke, Dr. Steven J. Kavros, Dr. John Filip (Bryn Mawr Hospital Philadephia), Dr. Horowitz ( Diabetic Foot Clinic, Jacksonville Florida).

You work so hard each day to help people save their life and limb. My goal is to tell every doctor I meet about how wonderful you are.

Another intregal part of her foot open wound healing was
Mist Therapy by Celleration Inc. (www.Celleration.com) .

Thank You Mayo Gonda 4 Circulation Boot Department

We wish to thank Dr. Thom W. Rooke,
Head Section of Vascular Medicine Gonda Vascular Center, Krehbiel Professor of Vascular Medicine Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.

We also wish to thank Dr. Steven J. Kavros, Associate Professor, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.

Thanks to their intervention her two toe amputation has almost completely healed through circulation boot therapy and MIST Therapy by Celleration, Inc (www.Celleration.com) . She was formerly a candidate for a below knee amputation. We decided against having amputation.

Dr. Rooke and Dr. Kavros has carefully monitored and cared for my mother. Each day as I see her foot, I feel blessed to know she has two great doctors treating her. They have helped save her leg.

They have a wonderful team working in the circulation boot therapy room dedicated to helping people.

We wish to thank many of the team members.

Cindy Felty( Nurse and Assistant to Dr. Rooke),Tanya Oberg(physical therapist), James Ross(physical medicine technician, Steve Hanna( physical therapist,Sandy Wood, Linda Koski, Andrea Bradford, Sarah Ferdin, Melissa Redig. We have not yet named all of the team members. Please check back for more names to be added to this list.

We wish to thank Mary Ellen Easley for her excellent follow-up of monitoring my mother's coumadin levels.
This is essential with preventing further blood clots.
We also wish to thank Paul Denziel ( Charlton 9) of the infectious disease divsion. He followed my mother closely in the beginning, monitoring her white blood cell count and her antibiotics which helped with infection control while her wound was healing.

Why I created this page.

I built this page to spread the word about caring for a mother with several complex health issues, My mother has cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure, diabetes, blood thinning issues, and is a kidney transplant recipient as of 12/14/05. Since her illnesses onset in fall of 2003. I have worked diligently to advocate for proper medical care. Being from Chicago,Illinois a place with 8 teaching hospitals. We chose to leave to go several states away to Mayo Clinic
( Rochester, MN).

In Illinois we had nothing but medical heart ache and dealt with medical service providers who had little or no answers.

Illinois had too poorly trained phelebotismists and nurses making egregious errors that almost killed my mother.

I can breathe easier having her medical care at Mayo Clinic. Visiting Mayo speaks for itself. It is crowded year round, through rain sleet or snow. The license plates of people driving from all over the United States and the buses carrying people from all over the world to the clinic.

I do not want for anyone to endure the suffering we have been through. Do not let an inexperienced doctor tell you that you have to accept a droppping heart ejection fraction. You do not have to have doctors constantly tell you with coldness " Well your kidney has already failed so the drugs won't harm you."

You deserve to be treated like you are going to live instead of being treated like you are going to die.

I am passionate about bird dogging big pharma and AMA to be treated with being presented with all of my options, not just the options that my insurance will cover.

In addition we fought to avoid a below knee amputation. We learned that amputation is not a sole option. You have other options to save your leg. Research, learn and advocate.