Bleeding Scare

The last few days our mother complained of stomach pain which she thought was indigestion from eating spicy foods. This started two or three days ago. She also mentioned to me on the phone that her blood pressure was very low and that she had stopped taking her blood pressure medicines. I spoke with her yesterday afternoon and no alarm bells went off since we thought it was related to the foods she ate. We were very wrong. Last night she vomited blood and she vomited blood again when she woke up. She was pretty near unconscious this morning and our father called 911 to take her to the hospital. She was admitted in the ER for internal bleeding and they started giving her transfusions. They said she had lost 3/4ths of her blood. This was also very dangerous since it strains the heart and she has suffered from heart problems. Extremely scary situation. The doctors performed an endoscopy and thankfully the source of the bleeding was easily found in two ulcers near where the Whipple was performed. The doctor cauterized them and she is doing fine now and should be fine. We need to be much more careful in the future. Maybe she should also increase the protonix she is taking.