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Help Jill fund her GCA & Osteoporosis Medication

  • A quick update

      25 February 2023
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    It has been a crazy couple of months. Mum (Jill) desperately wants to get home. She contracted Covid in hospital which has delayed her needed abdominal surgery further. Then, last week as the cyclone was bearing down on the Hawkes Bay, she was rushed to hospital with sepsis caused by a Pseudomonas bacterial infection. Infectious diseases were called and she was started on 2 antibiotics. She has luckily improved and has now been discharged to a rehab centre in Waipukurau. Mum has 2 new breaks in her back due to the transportation to hospital. She was delirious and couldn’t guide the ambo officers who were transporting her. To get home, she desperately needs an electric hospital style bed, but ACC (who have accepted her treatment injury) are digging their feet in. Apparently because she can get on to the bed, they won’t fund. The problem is, she can’t lie flat on her back and adjusts the bed multiple times a night because of all of the fractures putting pressure on her nerves. If she couldn’t get onto her bed, and had had a stroke, it would be funded. It seems so backwards! Anyway, that’s where we are at. She is on the urgent list for surgery as of yesterday, and we are hoping she will have a date within the next 3 weeks. I was lucky enough to spend a night in hospital with mum. Here’s our beds, side by side ❤️❤️❤️

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  • Back to square one ..

      8 November 2022
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    So, our last update seemed promising but only the next day mum went downhill again. I have update fatigue. All of this stuff mum is going through is really getting me down and I’m struggling to even want to update ppl. We just wanted good news for once.

    Mum can’t avoid the surgery. Her abscess came back and the surgical team really need to see the damage this abscess has caused. To do that they need to open her up & while in there they’ll resection her bowel. She will likely need temporary (hopefully) colostomy. This surgery poses great risks with infection. They’ve been desperately trying to taper mum off steroids but that comes with side effects. CRP levels are still fluctuating. Mum has broken her back in 2 more places. The new drain is a lot more painful than her previous drain do her pain meds are making her quite tired. She’s had a PICC line inserted as her veins kept collapsing and the hospital didn’t want to keep putting in IVs. And lastly, Covid is on her ward so she’s been locked down for 4ish nights.

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  • A big update.

      10 October 2022

    Well, things were touch and go there for a while! To be honest, I was worried we would lose mum. So mum had a drain put in her abscess. It was removed too soon which required a second drain to be fitted. Unfortunately, they perforated her bladder accidentally. Upon doing the second drain, a second abscess was also found. If we couldn’t get the abscesses sorted and under control, mum was facing a very real prospect of a major surgery that she likely wouldn’t recover from. I rushed down to Hastings with some things in my toolkit and spent time with her hoping that whatever we were doing would help her. We gave her Enterosgel, Vit C (High doses & IV) Nutrient Rescue, Probiotics, Tissue Salts, Electrolytes and trace minerals. Not only has her perforation resealed (although ballooning), her abscesses are gone. TMI : mums hair is growing back! Exciting but also she’s enjoyed not having to shave her legs for 9 months. This is great news in terms of her body regenerating. It disappeared after methotrexate and never returned as it should have (usually 3-4w after stopping you’d see growth!) Mum has not had any of her temporal headaches since beginning treatment for the abscesses and she has reduced down to 14mg prednisone and CRP levels are 4. So her drains are now removed. She has a new back break since being in hospital. But hopefully she is discharged soon and in to rehabilitation. Hoping she’s on the up and up from here. Will update again soon!!

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  • Drain placement successful

      14 September 2022
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    The drain has been successfully replaced. This time the surgeon will check the abscess before removing it again. Mum is in a bit of pain due to incision. Here’s hoping this works!

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  • Drain placement being repeated

      13 September 2022

    Sadly the first drain mum had in hasn’t successfully drained the entire abscess so they’re refitting another today which we hope will be successful.

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    • 13/09/2022 by Jenn

      Sending love and light for your mum and your whanau

  • A quick update!

      3 September 2022

    Firstly, thank you so much to everyone for helping by sharing this page or donating. A bit of bad news … Mum has been in hospital for 2 weeks with severe pain. By chance, a CT scan looking at her hip has identified an abdominal wall abscess. Because of the immunosuppressants & steroids, she is unable to have surgery to address this. So today, they will attempt to drain it. We are hoping for the best outcome from this. Again, thank you so much for helping mum. She sends her love to each and every one of you!

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