Saturday In the Dark
Well excuuuuse me for interrupting the party!
If I had known radiology was such an exciting department I would spend more time there!
That woman looks just like my old 1962 Nurse Barbie, including the glasses.
The doc in the back must be an intern. He has either discovered his first pelvic fracture or he’s pointing to a very distended bladder.
And I’m pretty sure Grandpa Attending is old enough to have invented the x-ray.
Oh well.
What the heck do I know.
I can’t read an x-ray any more than I can read Russian.
I’m goin’ to the ER.
They have better parties there, anyway.
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You’ll notice a bit of a difference between this blog and Emergiblog. Because most of this blog is sequential, there will only be one post at a time actually on the blog, with the ability to go from one post to another at the bottom. Or, if you are like me, you like to read from the back to the front. That’s how I read magazines.
Don’t ask….
(Is it a faux pas to link to yourself? It feels too good to be legal….)
Oh, and everyone’s link is there at the bottom with room for more!
Thanks to my Super Webman (Shane) for the ideas and designs changes!
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I had last seen John in the Emergency Department the night before. I went home and finally fell asleep around 0500. John called around 0900 and said not to come in, that he just wanted to sleep as he had very little opportunity during the night.
After finally getting to his med/surg room at 0100, he was then “admitted” by his nurse, who proceeded to ask all the same questions that were asked by:
- The ER triage nurse
- The ER doctor
- Three different ER nurses
- The hospitalist
- The surgeon
He wondered if anyone talked to each other.
It took until 0300 to “settle him in”. And because he had no medication ordered for sleep, they gave him the morphine that had been ordered for pain instead.
(Dilaudid in the ER worked wonderfully. Why Morphine on the floor orders? Trust me, I give both everyday to dozens of people. Dilaudid is the God of All Narcotics. Hands down.)
At 0500 they admitted another patient to his room. So much for sleep.
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I walked into the hospital room at 1300.
“What the HELL are you doing in a four-bed ward?” was the first thing out of my mouth.
Subtleness is not exactly my style.
My god, I didn’t even think modern hospitals even had those anymore! The room was packed. There were no chairs, so I sat on the end of John’s bed.
What about privacy laws? What about cross-contamination? What about the fact that this totally sucked? What about the fact that when I walked in there were no less than eleven people in the room, including the nurse?
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A different hospitalist had seen John that morning and said that the surgery should be done that day. His already elevated “liver test” had doubled overnight and the surgeon needed to know. The gallbladder was soon to be history.
John had not slept all night and had only napped briefly that morning. I didn’t stay long. He wanted to sleep and said he’d call me when he had more informtion on the surgery time.
I waited at home for the call. Did some mindless chores. Answered endless phone calls
And then decided to run to Safeway. It took all of 20 minutes.
During which time, the surgeon called. John was going to surgery in half an hour.
I grabbed my book, some water and some crocheting and flew to the hospital.
Only to discover the surgery would not be for six hours.
Per John, the surgeon strode into the room, told him he was going to the OR in thirty minutes, picked up the phone in the room to arrange for the OR team to stay (this was Saturday) in house and then came the deadly pause when John said…..
“They’ve been feeding me all day.”
He was supposed to have been on clear liquids.
“Nevermind…” said the surgeon. SLAM! went the phone.
I found out later the petite little spitfire surgeon called the day nurse at home to find out just how the error happened and who was responsible!
God, I love that woman!
So, by now there were only two people in the room, and I settled in for the wait for surgery. By and by the nurse came in for a blood sugar check. John introduced us.
“Hi!” I said pleasantly. “By the way, I’d like to see a copy of the lab work that was done today”.
“Uhhh…..you have to fill out a form…..confidentiality…..I can’t let you see……”
John piped up with “Oh don’t worry, this is my wife, she has my permission to see the lab work.”
“Uhhhhh…..I have to go ask my charge nurse………confidentiality…….”
Five minutes later she came back with a form that I had to fill out, take to medical records (on Monday), pay $25.00 and then I could get a copy.
WTF?
Verbal permission from the patient was not sufficient?
Nevermind that 8 hours before at least four other people in the room heard the exact results that I was now denied access to.
Can you spell “H-I-P-P-A”?
I knew that they could.
Apparently the C-O-M-M-O-N S-E-N-S-E to know how and why it was to be used was not part of the equasion.
Like I said before, no one gave a damn that I was a nurse.
And then, the piece de resistance.
At 1900 they tried to give him his diabetic snack. Three hours before he was due to go to surgery.
I am slow to anger. It was starting to build.
On schedule, at 2130, John was taken to the OR.
While he slept the beautiful sleep of Propofol-ed, I sat in the lobby waiting.
And seething.
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Up next: God hath no fury like Kim when she is pissed off to the breaking point.
radtec
June 6, 2006 at 1:19 pm
I feel your anger, and then some. They blackmailed my youngest son at the age of 12…’sign zee papuh’s or you kahnt see zee doktor’. Now, to get information on my UNDER AGE SON I have to get his permission first.
I heard this the other day for the first time. Not only did I laugh, it seems apropos:
“How bout you kiss my @$$ and bark at the hole!”
Hang in there….
Cathy
June 6, 2006 at 7:11 pm
Kim, I can tell how pissed you were and I don’t blame you. I have been putting off, for months, posting my Part IV of my total knee replacement surgery. To tell it like it was, I have to speak in a very unkind manner about a profession I have great faith and belief in. I was so completely dissapointed in the hosp. I was at, and the care I received. So, we’ll see if I get the nerve to finish or not.
Dream Mom
June 6, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Welcome to my world. It stinks sometimes. I am sorry you have to go through this.
For the record:
1) People rarely communicate. Ten different people will come into your room and tell you ten different things.
2) Be prepared to give your health history a million times. If I were paid $1 for every time I gave a health history, I wouldn’t need a retirement plan.
3) You have to be there all the time so that you can make certain that things go as planned. If you are there, then you know that they shouldn’t get a food tray or worse, that they didn’t forget to order a tray for a patient. If the patient can’t speak, then they go hungry until someone figures it out.
4) You not only have to keep track of the medications that “they” give the patient, you have to get the time that they should be given and then follow up throughout the day with every nurse to make certain they get ordered. For example, a drug might need to be given to Dear Son at 6 a.m. I start at noon the previous day and ask the nurse to order it so it’s here by 11 p.m. at night. Why? The pharmacy closes from midnight to 7 a.m. which means that if it’s not ordered by the daytime nurse then I won’t have it by the next morning. If it’s a seizure med, then well, we could be having lots of seizures if it’s not given on time. The shift change is at 7:30 a.m. so if the medication isn’t there by 6 a.m. then the night shift nurse will order it, the day shift nurse will tell you the night shift nurse didn’t order it and when it finally gets ordered and given to the patient, it’s 9:30 a.m. That in turn opens a new host of problems because the day nurse then documents 10 a.m. as the new time for the medication to be given. So let’s say that you give meds at 7, 12, 7 and 12 and now you have an outlier that’s given at 10 a.m. Well, if you don’t stay on top of all of this, you have a medication schedule that you will be giving upon discharge, that has you giving meds at all different times, none of which makes sense. Oh, and you have to check the medication to make certain what came up, was what was ordered and that the dose is correct. Yes, that’s what you do as a patient to make certain there aren’t any errors. That is why you have to be there. I am sorry if this offends anyone, it’s the way it is today because it’s very, very busy.
Sorry to rant, it happens all the time.
Gimpy Mumpy
June 7, 2006 at 6:46 am
I can’t count how many times the same scenario has happened to me. My mom camps out at my bedside when in hospital (and goes in with me to ALL appointments) but it never fails that they try to push some new med, solid food when not aloud, or wheel me off to some unknown land while mom has just gone into the bathroom.
If I complain that we need to wait for my mom then I am being a “difficult” patient and must need some sedatives. *sigh*
Hope this all goes well. Hubby is very lucky to have such a knowledgeable and attentive person to watch out for him!
Hannah
June 7, 2006 at 6:14 pm
Each post is a treat; I _love_ this new blog!
Hh
P.S. I was a HUGE fan of those guys, Chicago, who sang your title song, Saturday in the Dark…ur, I mean…Saturday in the Park.
enrico
June 7, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Hey Kim! I just found the new site–love it!
People always say that if the disease doesn’t kill you, the hospital will. And they’re right too much of the time. It takes one person to be sick and another person to manage the hospital, whether it’s a routine C-section or something as complex as a liver transplant. Too many cooks making too many different broths in sequestered kitchens, all bitching at how each other’s ways/norms is wrong while the patient and his/her family is served the gruel that they produce.
But I’m not bitter, no I’m not
(I’m no stranger to be being the patient). I wish I could say things would improve by the time I’m done w/med school and seeing patients full-time, but I’m not holding my breath (wouldn’t want respiratory acidosis 
).
Take care!
NPs Save Lives
June 9, 2006 at 6:01 pm
Repeating themselves is one the worst pet peeves that patients report to me. They ask all the time why I listen to their chest when the doctor just did it. I tell them that I trust my own judgment first then take opinions!
Kathleen
August 16, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Hey Kim, you stumbled upon the gray area in HIPPA, the clause in tiny print that is called commonsense. Most health care workers miss it. It’s hard to beleive you weren’t given recognition as a sister nurse. Sigh. I do love the creativity of AJ though. Sounds exactly like what I would have done.