Sunday February 9^th/2014

Yea… another day at St. Michael’s Hospital.  I didn’t hear from my mom this morning so I knew we were at the start of another off day L

I got here @ 11:50 am – did a run in the Timmy’s in the lobby so I could get a bagel for breakfast.  I’m sick of the food/junk food in this place.  I lost 11 lbs after my recent heart attack and think I’m going to gain it back thanks to the food available in this “health” institute.  They should be ashamed of themselves in regards to the food in this place, especially in the vending machines.  It’s all junk.

Speaking of which, I am going to write Toronto Public Health about the cafeteria.  A couple of days ago I got a “hot” meal there, the chicken souvlaki.  My mom was on the 7^th floor, the cafeteria is on the 6^th.  Her room is but 50 feet from the elevator, even less if I take the staff elevator and by the time I sat down at her bedside and opened the food, the chicken wasn’t much better than tepid.  The hot food is not being kept to safety standards.  Certainly not the chicken.  Gee thanks for the salmonella folks.

It’s noon, time for her pills.  I can barely wake her up.  Got them in her though finally.

She needed water and all I can find is a cup that is dirty on the outside and warmish water in it.  No jug.  I go to get one and not a single clean jug in the pantry.  Goodie.  No facecloths, no clean water jugs, no clean cups…   so I go looking.  I ask the lady delivering the food, she doesn’t know.  I ask her nurse T only to be told she is on a NO WATER restriction!!  Hellooooo  she’s already been dehydrated are we trying again?

No water…  why?  I told T that this damn place doesn’t know what to do with her and don’t follow the damn directives there, to just ask me.  No water my ass.  I finally found her jug, hidden behind the chair on the windowsill here.  I took it into the pantry and filled it with ice and a bit of water and got a clean cup.  Maybe tomorrow I should not only bring a facecloth but bring cups too?  Anything else?

Her lunch came.  They keep messing around with it as well and I’m pretty fed up with this issue too.

Took off the couple of things she can actually have on it..   the applesauce for her pills, her supershake and there’s a thing of asparagus soup too but doubtful she’ll eat it since she’s drifted off yet again.

I also cleaned up the leftovers from yesterday and caught a look at something.  Yesterday she ate very little, maybe got one supershake in her.  But I just got an eyeful of the best before dates on these.   The strawberry one which looks a pale yellowy colour is dated February 7^th !!!  She got it the afternoon of the 8^th.  The vanilla one is dated the 9^th.  That one is fine but why the hell is she getting one that obviously isn’t the right colour, you can see a wee bit of pink and the rest is off, dated the day before?

Got the tv finally on and the poor thing is sleeping through the one thing she loves the most, the Olympics, especially the ice skating.

She has eaten nothing today.  I got a few teaspoons of applesauce into her with her pills and about a third of her morning supershake.  That’s it.  According to this place it really doesn’t matter that she’s not eating either.   So exactly how long can a person sustain their health on maybe 300 calories a day at best? 

So let’s see…

-          They give her food she can aspirate into her lungs

-          They have someone that doesn’t have a clue feed it to her as well

-          They have removed her water  and have said she shouldn’t have it

-          They no longer have her on i.v. so she isn’t getting fluids that way either

-          They can’t get her food order correct and no one feeds her the one thing she is suppose to have that is her calories and nutrients for the day and to sustain her health.

-          They take her c.i. away so when she is agitated and trying to get out of bed there is no one watching her and chances are, she is going to hit the floor yet but I can’t be here 24/7.  I’m physically unable to be.

 1 pm and she’s still sleeping.  When will this sleeping stop?  I just keep trying to think sleep is healing. 

Her nurse also brought her pills in.  Her codeine and Tylenol.  I can’t wake her up enough to take them all.  Got her codeine in her in one spoonful of applesauce and only got one of the two Tylenols in her.  She’s down for the count yet again.  Think I’ll go and buy her some flowers from the gift shop.  Maybe if she wakes up later they will cheer her up.

 

Are you kidding me?  No damn wonder you can’t find a sheet or bedspread here for the patients.  Last night after I left at 8 pm someone went into my mom’s room and removed the only chair for anyone to sit on and it turns out they dragged it up the hall to a room 4 rooms up.  Guess they figured since she was pretty much passed out it was ok.

 Today I come, no chair.  Her nurse found it up the hall with a c.i. sitting in it.  She got it back for me.  I told them I wasn’t about to stand for the next 8 hrs.   This chair was uncomfortable for some reason, made no sense since it was comfy yesterday but there was a sheet over it.  I figured the sheet was bunched up and that is what was uncomfortable able so I got up and I removed the sheet.  There was another one under it..   I removed it and something was in there and it was a bedspread all folded up to make a cushion.  Under that was yet ANOTHER sheet all folded up to make another cushion.  And then under that is another freakin sheet, this one was a fitted bed sheet tied in a knot at the back to keep it in place.  6 damn sheets on this freakin chair!!!  I pulled them all off, went for some wipes and wiped down the stupid chair then sat my ass down.  It was now comfortable.  What the hell is it with this place?  So now patients have no sheets, and believe me, I looked in her cupboard, there is only a fitted sheet in there, there are now 6 sheets in the bin for washing and I can just imagine the laundry bill in this place without all this excess because someone working here obviously has some kind of germ phobia.  Cripes..  get the damn wipes and wipe it off. 

 2 pm – nothing..  still sleeping.  One of her old nurses, Bev, dropped in to say hi and we couldn’t even wake her long enough to say hi back.  I think she saw her but I’m not sure it registered.  Bev was sad by my mom’s appearance.  I remarked it didn’t even look like her and she agreed.

 2:15 pm a Dr. Gallagher came in.  Says he will be her Dr for the next few days.  Nice man but gave me a scary scenario saying this confusion may last a long time.  She will be here for another couple of days according to him with hopes of getting her back on track like she was last Thursday.

 2:30 pm nurse and c.a. came in to change her and damned if she didn’t fight them off.  Yelling my name, being combative, she wanted nothing to do with it.  She won’t even listen to me.   Kept saying she’d do it herself ..  don’t know what on earth is going through her head.    It took 10 minutes just to change her and put a fresh gown on and clean pad under her.  But then I noticed something, she is laying on a dirty bottom sheet and the c.a. said it was ok.  Could be changed later.  It had a urine mark and some feces.  It can wait?  If I could do it myself I would but in the shape she is in I can’t, she’d fight me all the way.  What the hell is with this place?  This is ok?????  If that Dr comes back in any time soon I’ll ask him if he would appreciate his mom laying on this. 

 4 pm..   nothing… nurse brought her heart pill for me to give but I can’t wake her up enough.  No one even comes in here unless necessary for the lady in the next room.  In all the hours I’ve been here  the nurse popped in twice for meds which I’ve given her.  That I don’t care about, she takes them better from me at times.  And once to change her.  So that’s less than once an hour.  Good thing she’s not on the floor again eh?

 Speaking of floors.  Just looking at this one.  There is stuff on this floor that has been here since she came here Friday evening @ 6 pm.  Stir sticks on the floor.  Yesterday the student nurse dropped the bag that covered the syringe they use to clear the iv and it’s still there too.

5 pm – her gums are bleeding, as usual, no one cares.  She woke up and I managed to convince her to take her teeth out so I could clean them because of all the crap I took out of her mouth yesterday and she is sticking her fingers in her mouth and coming out with more crap.  I used the green sponges to clean inside her mouth as well and damned if they didn’t come out with blood on them.  WTF?  Nurse wasn’t concerned, thought I scrubbed her mouth too hard.  Ass.  It’s a sponge for one thing and for another really????  Sure..  I just dug in there like I was digging for gold.  Stupid.

6 pm – sleeping yet again, she has sleep 90% of the day I think.  At least.

 No one ever puts lotion on her skin either and it’s getting dry.  Just what she needs, cracked skin.  What the hell happened to real nursing?  Some of these younger ones are in and out so damn fast your head will spin. 

I’m worried about all this sleep, it’s just not normal.

7 pm she’s refusing her medications …  with much ado and prompting I finally got 2 in her that she needed but not her pain meds. 

 I left at 7:45 with her telling me to bring her curling iron tomorrow for her hair.. sheesh

 

Her nurse contacted me near 10 pm and mom was so combative.  They needed to change her and her bed and she was having nothing to do with it.  I've never heard my mom like that.  I told them to call me if they had problems.  At least while I'm on the phone with her I'm somewhat of a distraction and they can get their job done.

Fri Feb 7th/ Sat Feb 8th/2014 this is a long post..

14^th floor

Friday February 7^th/2014

Up to the 14^th floor.  This floor is no good for her.  It’s like an omen, something drastically always goes wrong on this floor.

She was talking to me here from about 6 pm – 8 pm when I left.  No problem when I went.  I told her and she reminded me to feed the dogs and the birds and to call her when I get home if I could.  I left her my numbers in case she wanted to call me and told her how to use the bell to call for help.  I saw no c.i. for all the time I was here.  So much for a shared c.i., where the hell is she/he?

Before I left I let Julianna (her nurse) know that I changed her and she had a b.m.  She was then clean and dry and ready for the night.

 

Saturday February 8^th/2014

 

9:30 am I called mom and found her pretty much unresponsive.  She did not answer the phone herself, the c.a. in the room answered it.  I ended up having to yell into the phone to get a response and she was so out of it she mostly didn’t say a word.  Turned out the c.a. was feeding her oatmeal (she later changed her mind and said it was crème of wheat).  Regardless I told her not to feed it to her, it was too thick and a choking habit and to especially not feed her that when she is so incoherent and nodding off.   Exactly how stupid are these people?  Last thing I need is her ending up in step up again.  So she wanted to know then why she got this food and I had to sit there and explain that the hospital  demands some kind of diet put in the computer so pureed was the closest to what she needed.

No complimentary tv after all but at this point I couldn’t give a rats ass. 

Mom is worse than ever.  All she is doing is grunting.  I asked to see the Dr.  Was hoping either Amanda or Katherine would be here but a young man showed up.  Very nice and again I learned even more about delirium and according to him she can go back to completely unresponsive!!!  This is not fucking funny, it’s downright scary.  She’s like when I first brought her in this damn place with a raging infection.  She’s downright unresponsive.

I tried a cool wet facecloth on her face.  Her face was dirty.  Gunk all in her eyes and on her lips.  Her nurse came in and said she got her pain meds into her this morning and mom told her that she had a bad pain in her tummy.   Then at some point the mental midget tried to feed her while she was unresponsive.   She said she was a c.a. not a c.i.  and I’ve been here awhile again and have yet to see anyone.

This is not a good thing considering her nurse had to pack pillows all around her so she doesn’t  fall out of bed.  She keeps falling over onto the railings.  If she falls out of this bed I swear I’ll go after the nearest person.  She is so black and blue already from when she was thrashing around and being combative.  I believe she kept knocking her chins against one of the railings.  They are battered.  

My poor mom.  Normally her skin is so clear, unblemished.  At this point her entire peri area is so red raw it’s enough to make one cry looking at it or at least cringe.  I can’t get anyone to listen to direction from me or even the Dr.  I don’t want freakin zinc used on her, it’s difficult to wash off and at this point can tear her skin leading to more serious problems.

2 days ago I went to change her and was mortified at what I saw.  All sorts of crude in her peri area.  I swear no one had moved the folds of skin and clean inside them since she’s been in here.  It took me 5 minutes with a facecloth and lots of soap to clean just that area.  It was disgusting.  I try to clean her now every time she needs it when I’m here.  This is such bullshit.  Poor old little thing looks like she’s been through a freakin battle and back.

It’s been one issue after another in this god forsaken place.  Urban angel my ass.  I keep forgetting to bring Buddha for her to watch over her.   I started bringing him when she was in here in 2010.  I must bring him tomorrow to watch over her.

So far on this floor I have not found any of her pills at least.  On 7 I found 2 tylenols at separate times.  Both times I found one on a piece of folded up paper towel on her little dresser with drawers.  I also found her pantaloc twice!  What’s up with that?  I found one one day on the floor sort of under her bed and then yesterday I found yet another one, this time on her bed at the edge of her soaker.  How many other pills was she not getting?  There’s no telling.

Dr. came in again @ 2:20 pm and told me he ordered a scan of her head just in case she has had a stroke.  This is due to the grunting and no talking.  He doesn’t think so though since she can move both arms.  I told him I asked this question just yesterday.  He is also going to order an e.c.g. because when asked if she’s in pain she grunts and kind of nods yes.  When asked where.. she grunts again and touches her left chest area.  He is also going to get some blood work done.  She is not going to like any of this and I hope she doesn’t  get combative throughout this.

She’s slobbering today too!  She’s never done that before. 

And when I got here she’s dirty.  Her gown is all dirty and her eyes and mouth are crusty.  Geez does no one clean her at all in this place?

Maybe it’s time to blog this shit..   I started a blog years ago with her last stay on this damned floor.

A young student nurse came in about 2:30 to give her an ecg but she wasn’t having any of it L  She would not lay back and finally found her voice with constant “NO”’s being very clearly said.  At the same time they came to get her for a scan and there was no way in hell she was going to help them get her on the stretcher.   Finally they managed through all her struggling and shouting NO NO NO. 

I told them not to give her a sedative.  With her being so unresponsive already the last thing I wanted was her flat out unconscious.   And I remembered being told even giving her a sleeping pill may not be a good idea.

About a half hour after the porter came for her she showed back up to transfer her back to her bed.  She refused to participate with a resounding NO NO NO.  After getting her into her bed again they decided to retry the ecg. Well.. that simply didn’t work either.   So nothing got done and I’m sure the same will be said of her blood work when someone tries to get some from her.

At around 4:30 she woke up and looked at me and smiled.  Then she dropped her head again and that was that.  T, her nurse tried to take her blood sugar and damned if she didn’t start to fight her and I swear she even tried to take a swing at her.  She got it, its normal and it turns out that’s the 3^rd time she’s had to check mom’s blood sugars.  Why?  I asked her why and she just figured mom was diabetic but she isn’t!  Never has even had any blood sugar issues, not high, not low.  She is going to ask why she’s doing blood sugars on someone that isn’t diabetic.  Duh 

4:50 pm she lifted her head and had the meanest scowl on her face.  Opened her eyes for a bit but didn’t seem to focus on anything then dropped them shut and dropped her head back down.

This day is very disturbing for me.  I’m told she can waffle in and out, even to this point but I’m just having such a difficult time accepting this as my mom’s “norm” right now.  She has never had confusion other than when she had an u.t.i.  Other than that she’s clear headed, active, perceptive and enjoys life.  Right now I’m not even sure she knows who the hell she is and it’s tearing me apart to see her this way.  I’m not sure what to do at this point.  If I take her home tonight I have no sitter.  Speaking of which, I have yet to see a freakin c.i. and I’ve been here for hours on end.    Geez  I just dragged the chair by accident and it made a loud noise when I did and she didn’t bat an eye.  Nothing.

5:20 pm – I obviously have nothing else to do but type.  Dr came back in.   When he called her she actually opened her eyes and looked at him and she said something.  I’m thinking she asked who he was because he said “you don’t know me, I didn’t introduce myself last time I came and saw you.  I’m your Dr”.  That was that..  off she drifted again.

He told me that he wasn’t worried now that she didn’t get the scan because she obviously isn’t worse.  Had to agree with that.

I actually got her to talk a wee bit.  She was grunting again and I told her if she didn’t use her words I can’t understand what she wants so she struggled but said her tummy was upset.  I asked her if she wanted her ondansetron and she said yes.  I went and got it.

She didn’t give the nursing student a hard time when he cleared her iv line.  She got her medication.

All she does is moan and she keeps drooling for crying out loud.  What is up with that?  I told her again to stop moaning and groaning that I can’t understand it and to use her words.  With much persuasion she finally got out that she wanted water so at 5:45 she had a few good long sips of ice water which she said yes when I asked her if it was good.  And now she’s trying to strip off her gown and is moaning again.

See seemed to wake up a bit and the Dr came back in and she actually looked at him, made eye contact.  Said a few words with him.  Maybe things are looking up.  He gave me an excellent analogy of what’s going on with her, something I can actually grasp.  Thankful to him for that. 

A lot happened just before I left.  Mom got really agitated.  I finally got the tv set up for her and the skating was coming on and she loves the skating so I told her to take a nap for a half hour and I’d wake her up to watch the skating.  She kind of just layed there for a while then started to get antsy.  She wouldn’t do anything, wouldn’t drink anything and finally I got a few teaspoons of chicken soup broth in her.  Then weird stuff started.  She started telling me “I can’t”.  and repeating it over and over and I kept asking her what she can’t do and finally she blurts out “I can’t skate”!  I tried calming her and telling her it was ok she couldn’t skate and that no one expected her to.  We went at this for several minutes, probably 10 before she let it go.

Next she is telling me she needs help.  To “fix” it.  I had no idea what the hell she was talking about but she finally said something that made me realize she meant her mouth.  Looking closely I could see what looked somewhat like loose skin.  I told her to open her mouth and when she did it was gross.  Her tongue and inside her mouth was coated with something.  I have no idea what.  Wasn’t thrush I don’t think but it was coming off with a facecloth like pieces of skin.  It was very weird.  Told the nurse but she didn’t care.  Asked for a clean facecloth but couldn’t have one.  She wanted me to use a stupid towel to clean her tongue.  What an ass.  I rinsed out her facecloth and went back at it.  Geez I must have done it for a good 5 minutes and more and more of this shit was coming off.  Linda (don’t know what her job is) gave me those green sponges on a stick and I swear I used half the package of those too.  No wonder she was getting agitated with that shit in her mouth like that.  Finally I got the majority of it off and she calmed down for a few minutes.

We had been talking about being time for me to leave for the night and she was fine with it and then all of a sudden she got really agitated again and started telling me no and not making any sense and the next thing I knew she was making her way down the damn bed.  She was heading off it.

I ran for the nurse and asked her where my mom’s c.i. was because I had to leave and she was trying to get out of the bed.  Nurse couldn’t have given a shit and told me she would keep an eye on her.  Really?  When?  In between all her other patients that are all in different rooms?  I told her I wanted the c.i. in there and if she falls I’ll sue the damn place in a heartbeat.  This damn floor is a nightmare.  Always has been for her.

Next thing I know doesn’t the nurse come back and tells me that there is no c.i. for her and that I was in on the conversation about it and approved it!!!  Fuck this place.  If she falls I’ll sue them so damn fast their lawyer’s head will spin.  If she falls and injures herself I’ll make sure somehow that all the other shit she has endured at their hands on that floor is exposed as well.

On my way out I saw the dr that was seeing to her earlier and I told him I wanted the c.i. in her room with her that she is very agitated and trying to get out of the bed.  That she can get off the bed at the end of it and is moving down that way.  To which I was told he’d talk to someone (can’t remember who) and that he had no control over the staff there.  This place is a hole and I’d remove her tonight but can’t bring her home in this state.

Oh and either Julianna didn’t mark down that my mom had a b.m. or they just ignored her notes too because tonight even though she went yesterday and twice today (once in the morning and again early evening and it was soft) they are wanting to give her a laxative.   And they ask her if she had a b.m.  Right, like she knows or gives a shit.  The woman barely knows her name today, matter of fact we couldn’t even get her to say it whenever we tried, and they are asking her?   I told them not to give her a laxative or she will be shit from head to toe.  Dumb asses.  She so needs to get the hell out of there.

We're back at the nightmare on the 14th floor

It's been a long, long time but my mom is sick again.  It's been almost 2 years since she's been in this place.  She's been here since January 28th and every day I fear for her health, safety and life as long as she is in this hole.  Urban Angel my ass.  More like Satan's Sister.  Yesterday while sitting at the end of her bed I decided to start to add to this miserable blog again.  I had nothing else to do since thanks to this place she took a serious step back and is pretty unresponsive the vast majority of the day. 

Things are different though this time or I'd take her home right now.  Due to confusion from a serious infection she's delusional.  Is confused and yesterday even combative.  Never seen her like this in my life.  Scares the living crap out of me.

Anyway, time for me to get ready for the day again there so I'm going to simply copy and paste my remarks for the past day and a half here.