Hi. About a month and a half ago my mother - in - law had a defibrillator put in. During the surgery, the corkscrew anchor perforated her heart wall. She had the surgery because she has a weak heart (pumps out to the body at about a 30 now). She had fluid in the sac of her heart and severe pain. The fluid was treated with medicine and she was sent home. Approximately a week later she had severe pain again, had to go back in to have the lead moved because it pushed through the wall. She also had almost a liter of blood drained from around her heart. She went home after 5 days in the ICU and slowly felt better, but another week went by and she was having pain again. She went to the doctors and has inflammation of the left atrium and some fluid. They changed her medicine, but she has been in pain again. This time they took her off the water medicine and have her on prednisone. They also did a chest x-ray which showed the bottom of her left lung as being "cloudy" Her doctor isn't sure why. My mother in law was a very high energy woman who had no symptoms of any problems before going for a routine EKG during a physical - she is 69 years old and lately she has barely had the energy to be out of bed for more than a couple of hours. You can physically see the change in her when all of the energy drains from her body and it happens very very quickly. Could you help explain why, when her surgeon says she shouldn't be feeling this way that she is, and what a "cloudy" xray could be? Her surgeon said that if she isnt better in 2 weeks, he is going to recommend her to a different heart specialist because he is at a loss to explain why she isnt getting better.
Thank you.