On July 7, 2025, TikToker Katie’s (@katiee3673) mom had surgery to get her kidney and adrenal gland removed. Before the surgery, she was just a normal 56-year-old woman. But she ended up in hospice care.
The surgery went well, but everything took a turn for the worse during the recovery process. After the surgery, her mom received an epidural for the pain. Unfortunately, it slipped out of her back at some point, and no one noticed.
“So, the first night she was recovering from surgery, she was in an immense amount of pain, and nobody even thought to check her epidural,” Katie said. “They just kept telling her to push the pump, and that’s where it all started.”
The next morning, her mom got a new nurse named Katrina. When Katrina came in to introduce herself, she asked for Tylenol. Katrina thought that was a strange request because Katie’s mom shouldn’t have been feeling any pain.
So, they finally assessed the epidural and realized it had come out of her back. Katie’s mom was started on oral medication for the pain.
That afternoon, she felt like she was having a lot of pressure on her chest. She was worried because she was already at high risk for a stroke.
Katrina dismissed Katie’s mom and chalked it up to anxiety. That evening, her mom got approved to have solid food for the first time since her surgery. However, a piece of food got lodged in her throat while eating dinner.
She could not swallow it or cough it back up. She tried to throw it up for hours. Katie and her family told the night nurse, Danielle, about the issue, but she dismissed it and did not call the doctor.
All she did was give Katie’s mom her pain pills, which she couldn’t even swallow. They continued bringing up the problem to Danielle, but the doctor only prescribed a throat-numbing spray.
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“It didn’t work, obviously, because that was not the actual root of the issue,” said Katie.
“And after that, things just kind of steadily went downhill. She spent the entire night of July 8th and into the next morning of July 9th throwing up and trying to get that piece of food up. And, ultimately, that’s what led to the next series of events.”
On the morning of July 9, Katie and her family told the new nurse what was going on. The doctor came by to conduct an assessment, and that’s when they noticed something was really wrong. Her mom’s speech started to slur.
Later that morning, she wasn’t able to lift her left arm as high as her right arm. She also couldn’t sit up on her own. Katie noticed that one side of her mom’s mouth was drooping.
Immediately, she knew that her mom was having a stroke. The neurology team rushed into the room to handle the situation.
“I will say that a majority of the staff at this hospital just seemed like they hated their jobs, and they had no passion for actually taking care of people, and I feel like that’s a big reason of why my mom is where she is now,” Katie said.
Her mom was in very critical condition. She was in the process of having a massive stroke that would affect the entire right side of her brain, and she would likely have no movement on the left side of her brain.
Her difficulty with swallowing was the first sign of her stroke, and if someone had looked into it, they would’ve been able to intervene sooner.
The doctors could not remove the blood clot in her brain. There was nothing else they could do. She can still respond to family members by squeezing their hands or even writing on a little notepad. In the evening, her breathing tube was removed, and they found out she was able to talk.
At first, Katie and her family were hopeful that she could recover, but now, she is in hospice care, and they are waiting for her to pass on.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
