Pain Clinic

November 29, 2016

After we dropped Em off at school, I took Den for his weekly blood draw at the outpatient clinic. We stopped on the way home to get some breakfast at one of our favorite restaurants.

After lunch, we headed to the U of C for Den’s appointment at the Pain Clinic. Den has been having a lot of pain in his neck, shoulder, arms and hands from the herniated disks in his neck. The doctor went over Den’s history and suggested Tylenol Arthritis for his knee pain and referred us to Orthopedics to see about possible knee replacement. Since the stretching exercises were not helping with Den’s pain the doctor scheduled him for trigger point injections at his next appointment.

November 30, 2016

Den’s weight is up this morning. I sent an email to the LVAD team to double check what they wanted to do about the increase. Holly emailed me back to give me the instruction to increase his Bumex for 3 days.

December 1, 2016

Today is our appointment with Orthopedics. Dr A (no one in the office even tries to pronounce his name), had us go for 6 x-rays of Den’s knees. When we got back into the office, he said that Den has no cartilage in his knees and that was what was causing all the pain. Den’s kneecaps are very warn down and slightly out of place. Dr. A said that Den was not a candidate for knee replacement surgery, the risks with the LVAD were too high. His only remedy was cortisone injections. Den got injections in both knees and he said that he felt a decrease in the pain almost immediately.

Our next stop was to see the oral surgeon for a consult about the extractions Dr. Bogs suggested. Dr. Morris had done the extractions for Den’s lower denture a few years back and we were familiar with how he works.

We told Dr. Morris about Den’s recent medical history. He was a little taken aback with the LVAD, but when we told him what it was all about he didn’t seem to have any problem with continuing. He said he would need written clearance from the LVAD Team, Den’s INR would need to be as close to 2.0 as possible the day of the procedure, Den would need to pre-medicate with antibiotics for the procedure and he would call Dr. Bogs to coordinate aftercare.

All in all it was a good day, but we had a lot to think about and to plan for.