I got to the hospital kind of late this day, around 2 pm which is unlike me but all things considered I had things I really needed to do in the morning including get some sleep. I'm not good to her if I'm the walking dead.
When I got there she was out like a light. I had talked to her nurse, Grace, earlier and she told me she refused her medications and bed bath. Wonderful. She woke up when I spoke to her, gave me a kiss, said I love you and then fell asleep again lol
So the day went much like that. Around 5 pm her dr came by to announce she was going home Friday morning.
ok.. so the night before the dr admitted her to hospital because according to him she isn't safe at home. She fell. yea..so? She falls at the nursing home too.. and the hospital for that matter so the twit wasn't really making sense. If she isn't safe at home due to a fall then she isn't safe in long term care or the hospital because she's had falls in all these places.
Anyway.. they still don't know if she needs an antibiotic or not. Now I'm puzzled because her nurse told me she was on an antibiotic already! So I ask the Dr if she's on an antibiotic or not due to the info I got and I'm told no.. they gave her one then stopped it! Really??? why even give her one then? So they will send her home Friday morning and will fax in a prescription if she needs it.
Not a word or mention of how safe she will be at home in regards to falls. nadda..... guess they want the bed again.
Oh... and the bed... I'm told what room she is in and for some reason it's bugging me. Room 6. Something in the back of my mind is needling me about that. When I get there I realize exactly why.. room 6 on the 14th floor is telemetry. It was this room... and exactly this bed.. that she was in 4 years ago when she shared the room with the drunk in detox that grabbed the syringe and yanked the big bottle of hand cleanser off the wall and stood at the end of her bed with it held in his hand like a club and a stabbing implement!!! What a freakin nightmare that evening was. Go back to the beginning of this blog to read that story. I am not superstitious but this room.. that bed... gives me the creeps.
So... she didn't eat either this day. She didn't eat her breakfast and lunch she got about 2/3rds of her mushroom soup in her, that's all. When I was there I noticed that there was a menu on her side table. A menu? for her? She is on a strict liquid diet. Her esophagus doesn't work and if gravity doesn't take it down, nothing will and she will aspirate it. I'm a bit confused since she did have soup and her sherbert so I don't mention anything.
Dinner comes and what does she get? Full regular diet!! Solid food!! Absolutely nothing she can eat. Now it's after 5 pm and there is no one here to help with this matter. I asked someone to get her a supershake but I think she forgot. Forgetting isn't an option since it's all she can eat.
Now I'm running around looking for her nurse who is m.i.a. I don't know how many patients Grace has or how difficult they are but for the most part, we can't find her most of the day. The lady in the next bed is having difficulties with her i.v. and the damn thing is beeping, beeping, beeping and she's calling the call bell over and over.. no one comes although they keep telling her over the intercom that someone is coming. No nurse, no c.a. Matter of fact, now I think about it, I didn't see a c.a. the entire time I was there today.
I'm seriously trying to find her something to drink. The lady that brings the food says something should be coming. At 6:45 she tells me it should be there around 7 pm. Well 7 pm comes and goes and still nothing. Then I go to the nurses station because I still can't find Grace and they are not interested either. I'm told I have to get someone (the c.a. or nurse) to go to the fridge to see if there is an ensure in there. geez people.. I tell her I can't find the nurse and I go looking again as she calls over the intercom for the c.a. to go to my mom's room.
I finally find her nurse at a couple of minutes after 7 and I tell her that I was told to get her to look into the fridge for something liquid for my mom to eat. I'm then told "She didn't eat breakfast, and she didn't eat lunch so it should be ok and she can have breakfast tomorrow morning!" and "I'm too busy to look".
The room across the hall from my mom's room is like a staff lounge, recliner chairs, tables, etc.. it's full of staff including the c.a.'s. It's 7 pm and the shift changes @ 7:30 but always.. and I mean always.. they scatter at around 7 pm and are nowhere to be seen. Even earlier at times. The poor old woman next to my mom had about an hour earlier been dinging the damn call bell so someone could come and undo her i.v. for her so she could walk to the washroom. She really had to go. Every time she rang that damn thing someone would come on and say "Can I help you?" and she would say, in this tiny voice.. "I need help please to detach me from this". And she'd get the same response "ok". And she'd wait. Holding it. Good thing she could. I kid you not.. at least 45 minutes later the nurse finally showed up, feathers ruffled, undoing her iv for her and muttering about how busy she was when the lady remarked she had been waiting a long time.
Anyway.. long and short of the dinner issue.. c.a. never showed up, nurse was "too busy to look for something for her to eat and she'll be ok with nothing until the next day".. so I took it upon myself to go to the damn fridge and look. I took a small white milk from it and tried that but really didn't think it would fill her up. I then went downstairs to Timmy's and got her a large chocolate milk and brought it back upstairs for her before going home.
On my way home I gave this a lot more thought and it seems that next time she goes I will have to make sure that ensure or a can of zip top soup goes with her so she has something to eat because obviously this hospital doesn't realize that there are people out there that require a liquid diet!!!! assholes...
No comments:
Post a Comment