Ann Wilkinson

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.
Just a quick note to give a quick update and we will add more details tomorrow. Mom is home and resting peacefully under hospice care. She is very happy to be home where she belongs. We will know more tomorrow as we meet with the hospice team. Please feel free to share messages with mom here and we will forward them to her. We will keep you posted as to when she is up to visitors. We as a family appreciate all of the support, love and of course our many prayer warriors. The power of prayer is an amazing thing.

Back to the beginning....On December 1st, mom had a scheduled angiogram to determine why she had profound shortness of breath.  During the procedure they found a 99% blockage on the right cornary artery.  The doctor was able to clear the blockage and insert 2 stents.  She returned home after a short hospital stay and felt pretty good for a couple days.  She even ventured out at her favorite store (Hy-Vee) without her oxygen.  Within a very short time after she started feeling poorly again.  She had a scheduled follow up appointment with the cardiologyst last Thursday.  They ran a couple tests and immediately sent her to the ER at St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul.  Plans changed a few times during her ER visit.  She was going to be admitted to the ICU and there was discussion of putting her on a breathing tube.  Eventually the decision was to admit her to the cardiac floor of the hospital on comfort care as there was nothing medically they could do to help mom due to the amount of damage to her heart and lungs.  Her primary diagnosis was Cardiogenic Shock.

In her fiesty form, she fooled everyone and made it to Friday.  When the doctor from the ER came to visit her in the morning, she said "I'm still breathing!" in her one of a kind way.  Needless to say the expression on his face was priceless and he was speechless.  He was quite certain she would not last through the night.  She continued to fool everyone and eventually was able to be discharged from the hospital to her home and receive hospice care from Healtheast Hospice.  She was home and comfortable by 8pm on Saturday evening.