gasping for a breath...

Last night as I was about to leave my mom for the evening she started having a problem breathing, this is nothing new, it's been a terrible problem for her for some time. When her heart races (which it does on a regular basis due to the A-Fib) it causes her to gasp for breath. So when this happens last night I go and get her oxygen only to discover that someone has managed to toss the tubing out!! Real smart.

So I buzz the nurses buzzer. I think this has been buzzed all of 3 times in the past 20 days she's been there so you can't say she's a nag or a bug of any kind. The nurse comes on and asks what she needs. I tell her that she's gasping for a breath and needs her oxygen. She says "ok, I'll tell her nurse".

In the meantime I try to comfort my mom, ease her mind, relax her, whatever I can do to try to help the issue since there is nothing else I can do. Finally it starts to ease up for her after a lengthy enough time battle with it, she's exhausted now and it scared the hell out of her. It's been 15 minutes almost since I called. I buzzed at 8:56 and it's now around 9:10. I ask her if I can leave her for a few and she says ok so I go out into the hall to see if I can find anyone. I see her nurse and I'm puzzled as to why she didn't come. She's using the phone there to call the desk and she tells me she got no notice my mom needed her!

I tell her she was gasping for breath and needed the oxygen and she asks the person on the other end of the line if they called her and they said no!!! No.. nice huh? You have a patient gasping for a breath and whomever is on the desk answering the patient calls doesn't think it's important enough? Tell that to my mom why don't you? I told the nurse I was putting in a complaint and I will when I get the time but I know the date and time and that's pretty much all I need, they can look on their schedules and see who was on duty. Her nurse realized how important this was though and once hearing that came directly to her and got her oxygen hooked up again for her.

What is the matter with these people? All they have to do is answer a freakin call button and relay the message to the nurse that she's needed. And one would think gasping for a breath would qualify for action.